Phnom Penh's Waste

On Friday, I was invited to go to the city's only dump site, a collection of Phnom Penh's waste. Mind you, this is a big city - imagine the whole population of RI, multiply that by 2, and then cram everyone in one city - 2 million people.

A village of scavengers has developed in the dump site, as the empty bottles and plastics provide a source of income for the very poor. There are 540 families living there, and over 1,000 kids.



We delivered food - bananas, apples, pinneapples, and bread - to all the kids.



They were short handed, so I had to volunteer with the medical team. All of these kids, from 8 months to 7 years old, had all of these medical needs especially infections. Lots of them had scabies on their feet. Others had open wounds that had become infected. A little baby has a dislocated arm. A mother had a piercing ear ache. I had to sanitize and clean off their wounds. Held back the tears. It was hard. Here's a video.