LIBREVILLE, Gabon — Larry, a scrawny eight-year-old, struggles to haul along a sack that is bigger than he is, crammed with bits of metal that have caught his eye.
Dressed in ragged clothing and rubber boots, dozens of children like him live and scavenge on the Mindoube rubbish tip on the outskirts of Libreville, the capital of oil-rich Gabon.
Makeshift dwellings of sheet metal and recycled materials have been built on the landfill, a mountain several tens of metres (dozens of feet) high and hundreds of meters (yards) long.
Every day, dump trucks discharge about 800 tonnes of waste. Diggers churn the garbage in a constant hubbub of heavy machinery while a stink, fueled by t…
Keep on reading: Going to waste: The children who survive on Gabon’s garbage dumps