Trash pickers pay Tiger 10 KSH ($.12 USD) a game to use his pool table during breaks. And, in order for us to gain entry, we too had to pay Tiger for his approval. He grew-up eating the leftovers of Nairobi's airline passengers and has spent most of his life working at the site.

A metal picker takes a break in the Dandora dump.

Every day, the unfinished salads, sandwiches, bread, yogurt cups and waste from each plane that touches down in Nairobi are transported to the Dandora Municipal Dumpsite - Nairobi's only dumping location for waste. Dozens of men fight over the scraps as soon as the truck arrives

Rahab Rujuru, 42, a mother of six children - between the ages of four and 17 - moved to a small home directly bordering Dandora after the country's 2007 post-election violence forced her family from their Eldoret farm near the Western border of Kenya.

At the end of the day women are allowed to pick through the dumpsite.

Trash pickers often represent the lowest economic class and most marginalized population in society. It's no different in Dandora, Kenya. A man from the neighboring slum of Korogocho hefts his last bag of trash for the day in hopes of selling the mostly rubber scraps for $.50 USD.

"Working here is how I am able to feed my children," she said. "Of course it is not a usual job. Dodging pigs, used condoms, eating what I find; no it's not good for me. But it is a job and I have to persevere." Asthma makes life even harder for Rujuru. Toxic-laced smoke from small fires of burning waste spreads to every corner of Dandora. As a mother, though, what bothers her most is the adult behavior that her children are forced to witness. Save her four-year-old, all of the Rujuru family scavenges Dandora with their mother on weekends and after their classes to earn money for school fees, books, and uniforms.

Most pickers seem to have their niche product they are looking for; rubber, firewood, food scraps, milk containers, plastics, cardboard.

"Tiger" is Dandora's gatekeeper. City trucks pay his cartel to enter the site. Trash pickers pay 10 KSH ($.12 USD) a game to use his pool table during breaks. And, in order for us to gain entry, we too had to pay Tiger for his approval. He grew-up eating the leftovers of Nairobi's airline passengers and has spent most of his life working at the site.

The sun rises on the Dandora dump site, slum-dwellers and scavengers fight for space.

Tiger directs an incoming city dump truck to an acceptable location for dumping. A lot of shouting comes from the pickers, asking Tiger to direct the truck to a spot that does not spill onto an area they've yet to sort through.

Children patiently pick through used candy wrappers looking for small fragments of candy.

Predawn light on the Dandora dumpsite as a lone picker begins another day early. In the distance, the neighboring slum of Korogocho high power crime prevention lights help illuminate the otherworldly scene.

Most eat what they can find. Others sort through the trash and place into large sacks whatever can be sold for recycling.

At the back of the dump truck, men pick up scraps of half eaten and completely spoiled food waste.

Men climb on seemingly every possible inch of the food truck while others wait their turn or friends to toss them a morsel.

Using a bent piece of rebar with a makeshift handle, the pickers spend all day up to their knees, hunched over, unprotected in every possible way.

On the edges of the dumpsite you will find those that prefer to work alone, looking instead for metal scraps. The metal usually reveals itself easier in areas that have caught fire from biogas and these men endure the harshest breathing conditions with a potential larger payout for the product.

An informal chain of middle men and women has long done the dirty work for recycling companies. Sorting through metals, rubber, meat bones, milk bags, and plastics, hundreds of self-employed pickers scavenge the 30-acre dumpsite from 5am to sundown. Community buyers purchase their day's work at nearby weigh stations, eventually selling the newly acquired share to informal drivers who are ultimately paid upon delivery by the recycling companies. None of the workers make more than 250 KSH ($2.50USD) per day. Here, buyers in the slum wait for pickers to deliver bags of plastic bottles.

To get from the dumpsite to the neighboring slums, pickers must cross the tar-black Nairobi River.