Sreeparna Chattopadhyay offers a first-person account of the harmful health effects of air pollution from burning waste in India.
Garbage, toxic air, and deaths
At least 1.5 million people in India are killed by air pollution annually, contributing to 18% of the overall total death burden (Janganthan et al., 2024). The disease burden from air pollution is underestimated and likely much higher (Ibid). Worryingly, air pollution thresholds in India are significantly higher than the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) permissible limits, particularly for PM2.5, where even short-term exposure leads to deaths.
Open garbage burning constitutes an important source of air pollution in urban India. 24% of all solid waste is burnt because appropriate solid waste management systems are absent and there is poor implementation of existing environmental protection law (World Resources Institute, 2022). Air pollution has long and short-term health consequences ranging from respiratory ailments to cognitive impairment and cancer. However, there is little political will to change. The Indian government recently responded to a parliamentary question on the matter by citing “a lack of studies” that unequivocally links air pollution and death (Narayan, 2025). This is disingenuous since there is a mountain of evidence linking the two.
The first-hand effects of second-hand smoke
On a cool August night in 2022, our bedroom filled with an acrid smell. I had the distinct sensation of a giant boulder resting on my chest. In a room that was never quite dark, the air felt heavy as if we were being gassed with putrid smoke. Was I dreaming? Was there a fire in our flat? Why was I gasping for breath at 2am in my newly rented and expensive flat, in an upscale area of this ‘smart city’?
I woke my husband. My toddler awoke a few seconds later, coughing, stubby fingers rubbing sleep-heavy eyes. We scanned our house for any signs of fire. Upon checking our balcony, I encountered smoke so thick my eyes stung. Struggling for oxygen, I reached for my inhaler and took two deep puffs, one minute apart, and slowly felt my lungs decompress.
We walked into each room of the house, hoping to find one where the smoke had not infiltrated. Our kitchen, living room, and the guest bedroom had turned into gas chambers. A single room in the far side of our home was spared – claustrophobically small, pitch dark, windowless, and always a little cold.
I had hated this room since the day we first saw the apartment; but it gave us refuge that night and many other nights. We gathered our pillows and duvets from our spacious ‘master’ bedroom into the 8 by 10 foot room, spare except for a single cot and a small wardrobe. We shut the door tightly and breathed in deeply. A few minutes later my toddler stopped coughing.
The next day we awoke at 7:30 am, late for school and work, exhausted from a disrupted sleep. Over the next months we continued this somnambulism each night, ritually moving from the main bedroom to the smallest room. We bought an air purifier, but it didn’t solve the problem because our bedroom does not have hermetically sealed windows. Smoke had free reign in our flat which was just 20 feet off the ground.
Where there is smoke, there is fire
Finding the source of this nocturnal smoke turned into a compulsion–each morning, armed with my N95 mask, I walked the streets, my eyes scanning for physical signs that would explain our nightly hell. Like a hunter inspecting the ground for the pug marks of a man-eater, I looked for embers, a half-burnt plastic bottle, soot, anything that would indicate that waste was being turned into ash and smoke.
I imagined the fine particulate matter moving from our nostrils into our windpipes, lodged in our lungs for eternity. I knew these microscopic particles were coursing through our respiratory tracts, blood, brains, affecting our respiratory and immune systems and impairing our cognitive functions. Carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene, nitrogen oxides, dioxins, and polycyclic organic materials, carcinogenic compounds, the afterlives of burnt solid waste became part of my daily vocabulary. I was tormented by nightmares of these chemicals entering us from every pore and orifice, and refusing to leave, like a malevolent spirit that cannot be exorcised.
During one of my daily hunts, I stumbled upon a basti (an informal settlement) a kilometre from my home – two toddlers were playing 20 feet away from a blazing fire that was melting a mix of plastic, putrefying food waste, tinsel, and the remnants of crisp packets, into aerosolised particles. I knew these particulates would invade their soft tissues, disabling them before finally killing them long before they reached the Indian average life expectancy of 70 years. I felt fortunate but also guilty that, while I was able to insulate my child from the worst of it, these children did not have the same chance.
Not enough smarts for a smart city
We lived in a smart city – a municipality that is designed to use information technology for sustainable, urban life. I reported each incident of garbage burning to the Municipal authorities. They asked me for evidence, and to geotag each photo and video. I complied, not knowing that they would use the evidence I gathered to prove that garbage burning was happening, but outside of their jurisdiction.
I photographed blazing fires during the day and posted them in our apartment WhatsApp group. A few concerned neighbours also started posting videos of illegal burning at night. I saved them so I could collect proof of the assaults on our bodies in the hope that such proof would make it stop. I shared these with our elected ward official. Nothing happened.
Each morning, afternoon, and night, I assiduously checked the Air Quality Index (AQI) and made notes about whether it was safe to go out; some days it was never safe and others barely so. Masks became routine for our family although the COVID-19 pandemic was somewhat waning. I was gripped by fear and anxiety for my daughter. I knew the lungs of children were especially vulnerable and she had been suffering from colds that metamorphosed into serious bacterial infections very quickly. Instead of letting her take the school bus, my husband drove her to school, ashamed that we were adding to the problem of air pollution. But how also else could we protect her?
Normalising the pathological
During this period, I heard that hospitals were running out of paediatric beds because of the outbreak of a particularly vicious strain of an upper-respiratory tract bug amongst young children. I refused to believe this was merely due to a lack of exposure to early childhood infections – the dominant hypothesis of paediatricians. By irritating the mucosal lining and lowering immunity, air pollution increases the risks of viral and bacterial infections and prolongs recovery.
Our paediatrician had become our best friend. He gave our child a standing prescription and agreed that there was something foul in the city’s air that was causing these recurrent infections. He understood because he had spent a decade working in a country with clean air and a nationalised health system, unlike India’s privatised models. In India good quality care depends on an ability to pay – the public health system in most Indian states is under resourced, often lacking specialists.
In September 2022, our toddler developed a stubborn hacking cough. It kept us awake at night and meant anything she ate was vomited within minutes. An array of physicians prescribed antibiotics, inhalers, and bronchodilators to ease her breathing. It made her comfortable, but only temporarily. The image of the toddlers playing next to the blaze from still haunted me. They did not have an arsenal of medicines, air purifiers, or resources to see specialist clinicians like we did.
One day, I took my daughter to work – she was too sick for school, and I could not cancel class. She started coughing at 12pm and continued until 3pm, vomiting intermittently. Her ear drums ruptured from the force of this coughing and were oozing a whitish discharge.
We rushed her to the nearest clinic, where she was prescribed immediate nebulisation (inhaling medicines turned into vapour through the mouth so it goes directly into the lungs) because her airways had become “hyper-reactive” (NHS, 2023).
Our ordeal didn’t end there – we ended up visiting another clinic for nebulisation, finally landing at the ER at 10pm – 3 hospital visits in a single evening, a record even by the standards of our sick family. It was only in the ER that her incessant coughing and breathing trouble eased.
Through the rest of that winter, my daughter continued to be sick, nebulised five times a day at times, to help her breathe. In the summer of 2023 we decided to leave the city for one where noxious fumes would not be our daily companion. I sacrificed a great job but I also know this type of climate-induced migration is increasingly common in India, though not always documented (Farooque, 2024).
Conclusion
As wildfires raged in North America and Europe throughout the summer of 2023 and the winter of 2025- orange haze, and miasma spreading through continents, torching homes, lungs, and hopes- a minority woke up to the grim realities of how many of us live. Aerosolised particles do not respect borders. They transport themselves with speed and impatience. Once they enter human tissue, they become permanent residents.
Air pollution is not a seasonal problem in the Indian sub-continent and is expected to worsen over the coming years (Kumar et al., 2018). It becomes newsworthy only when schools close and the AQI turns a hazardous purple in the Indian capital. But you don’t have to be exposed to numerically hazardous levels of air pollution to be affected by it. Its risks are also not equally distributed – I was privileged to be able to mitigate against its worse effects, but the majority are not this fortunate.
About the author
Sreeparna Chattopadhyay holds a PhD in anthropology from Brown University. Her research focuses on gendered violence, intersectional inequities, and reproductive justice in India. She has received international grants and is published widely. Her book The Gravity of Hope (2024) explores the links between domestic and structural violence.
References
Jaganathan, Suganthi, Massimo Stafoggia, Ajit Rajiva, Siddhartha Mandal, Shweta Dixit, Jeroen de Bont, Gregory A Wellenius, et al. 2024. “Estimating the Effect of Annual PM2·5 Exposure on Mortality in India: A Difference-in-Differences Approach.” The Lancet Planetary Health 8 (12): e987–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00248-1.
World Resources Institute India. 2022. “Combating Open Waste Burning to Reduce Air Pollution.” World Resources Institute India, October 18, 2022. https://wri-india.org/blog/combating-open-waste-burning-reduce-air-pollution.
Government of India. 2025. Smart Cities Mission. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://smartcities.gov.in/.
California Department of Public Health. 2025. “N95 Respirators: FAQs.” California Department of Public Health. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/EPO/Pages/Wildfire%20Pages/N95-Respirators-FAQs.aspx.
National Health Service (NHS). 2023. “Nebulisers.” NHS Inform. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://www.nhsinform.scot/tests-and-treatments/medicines-and-medical-aids/nebulisers.
Narayan, Shivashish. IMPRI (Impact and Policy Research Institute). 2022. “The Menace of Air Pollution in India: Challenges and Way Forward.” IMPRI Insights, November 14, 2022. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://www.impriindia.com/insights/air-pollution-india-2/.
Farooquee, Neyaz. 2024. “Air Pollution in Delhi: The Families Fleeing India’s Capital to Escape Deadly Smog.” BBC News, November 27, 2024. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjw08v13wp3o.
Kumar, Rajesh, Mary C. Barth, G. G. Pfister, L. Delle Monache, J. F. Lamarque, S. Archer-Nicholls, S. Tilmes, et al. 2018. “How Will Air Quality Change in South Asia by 2050?” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 123 (3): 1840–64. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD027357.
