Where the City Throws Itself Away

A portrait of the human side of waste

In big cities, waste is designed to be invisible. It disappears behind doors, schedules, and municipal routines. But “away” is always a real place — with its own geography, economy, and human cost.

These photographs were made at the Salarievo landfill in Moscow in 2002 and were first published as part of a photo report for NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands). They document a moment when a landfill could function not only as infrastructure, but as a harsh social landscape: a workplace, a shelter, and for some, a childhood. Cold, smoke, makeshift huts, and exhausted bodies are part of the scene — yet so are ordinary human bonds and small signs of tenderness.

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BY OLEG KLIMOV

Today, Moscow generates millions of tons of municipal waste each year, and a large share of it is transported outside the city for treatment and disposal. The system has changed, the language has shifted toward sorting and recycling — but the central question remains: who lives closest to what the city throws away, and what does that proximity do to a person, a community, and a landscape?Two decades later, waste management may look more modern, but the dilemma is unchanged: the cleaner the city center, the heavier the burden on its periphery.

Oleg Klimov, freelance photographer

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BY OLEG KLIMOV