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BIKRAMADITYA KUMAR CHOUDHARY

'waste'is both a richly polysemic term and a complex, socially constructed category. Apart from its reference to waste substances (which are socially defined as such), it carries several negative, non-material connotations inthe socio-cultural context. The term'waste', employed in a non-material sense, is often used to represent and treat social entities or groups as redundant. Garbage-comber is one such group that comes from the poorest section of society and earn their livelihood from waste. while they share a portion of the burden of municipal bodies, which are to collect the entire generated-waste in the large third world cities, they subject heir individual health to hazardous conditions. The garbage-combers of Delhi, the capital of India, exemplify such phenomenon.