Located at the heart of mumbai is Dharavi-one of the Asia’s largest slums,surrounded by luxurious skyscrapers.Spread over 525 acres Dharavi is home to more than a million people.Yet It is a thriving business centre propelled by thousands of micro-entrepreneurs who have created an invaluable industry – as many as 4500 to 5000 small scale industries exist and function within the Dharavi most of which recycle the discarded waste of Mumbai’s 19 million citizens.

The majority of the place is a plastic recycling industry.The enormous recycling operation in Dharavi is well known for collecting everything from glass and paper to aluminium, paints, tins and plastics. 4,000 tonnes of waste gets processed every day, which generates USD 72 million a year and employs around 250,000 people.These statistics have earned the industry the label of ‘Dharavi’s recycling miracle’.

A neighbourhood called 13 Compound is one of the busiest in Dharavi (Mumbai). It specializes in recycling about anything that can be resold.Single room factories scattered all over the place recycle cardboard, paper, plastic, steel and old refrigerators.About 80% of Mumbai’s plastic waste is recycled here.The industry employs almost 10,000 people, melting,reshaping and moulding discarded plastic.

The plastic, which comes in all forms, including bottles, boxes, pens, is first sorted according to colour and quality.

Next, the plastic is ground into flakes and sold to a granule maker. In his factory, the plastic flakes are washed, dried, melted,squeezed into wires and then chopped into pellets.

These pellets are then used to make different types of products.

The waste is collected from various households and commercial buildings by housemaids and servants who then bring it to Dharavi for recycling.

Hundereds of bare footed children scurry back and forward, hauling bundles of waste – plastic, cardboard or glass – retrieved from Mumbai’s vast municipal dumps for recycling.

Dharavi remains a land of recycling opportunity for many rural Indians. The average household in Dharavi now earns between 3,000 and 15,000 rupees a month (£40-£200), well above agricultural wage levels.

Yet,the future of Dharavi looks bleak

this extraordinary way of recycling may soon come to an end. The government has provisionally approved a plan called “Vision

Mumbai”, which aims to create a world-class city by 2013.Under the plan, Dharavi will be demolished and replaced with flats in high-rise blocks for the slum dwellers, and the rest of the land will be used for shopping malls and luxury apartments.

But there is fierce opposition to this plan from Dharavi residents who believe that this is only to benefit the rich and the powerful.

For a growing number of environmental campaigners Dharavi is becoming the green lung stopping Mumbai choking to death on its own waste.