A boy looks for sellable materials close to the burning garbage in the permanent waste land under Sylhet City Corporation for a living, on January 15, 2015. (Photo by Md. Akhlas Uddin/Pacific Press)

The photograph you see above isn’t the result of Photoshop or infrared photography. Captured by Spanish photographer Palíndromo Mészáros, it shows what the landscape of Ajka, Hungary looked like half a year after the Ajka alumina plant accident — an industrial disaster in which 35 million cubic feet of toxic waste flooded the land to a height of around 6.5 feet. Mészáros lined up the thick red line caused by the sludge with the horizon line to obtain this surreal image.

Chinese artist Song Dong stands in his installation entitled “Waste Not” in The Curve at the Barbican Art Gallery on February 14, 2012 in London, England. Waste Not comprises over 10,000 objects collected by Song Dong's mother over a period of 5 decades. The installation is Song Dong's first major solo exhibition in the UK and opens to the general public on February 15, 2012. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

A man carrying buckets walks along a beach littered with piles of debris and plastic waste at the Kedonganan beach in Bali, Indonesia, 19 March 2024. Most of the trash ends up in the sea every rainy season due to the island's lack of a centralized waste management system. (Photo by Made Nagi/EPA/EFE)

A waste picker unloads garbage at a waste transfer station in Bamako, Mali, August 19, 2018. In the Malian capital of Bamako, donkey carts driven by young men like 19-year-old Arouna Diabate play a vital role battling the fast-growing city's waste problem. Every morning before dawn, Diabate hitches his donkey to a cart and sets off on his rounds, going door-to-door to collect household garbage which he delivers to a local waste transfer station for a monthly salary of around $35. “I won't be picking up trash with a donkey cart for the rest of my life, but for now people appreciate us because we help clean up the homes of Bamako”, Diabate said. (Photo by Luc Gnago/Reuters)

Boys eat at a rubbish dump where they are collecting recyclable waste outside Yemen's Red Sea port city of Houdieda January 20, 2016. (Photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters)

A boy reaches for a ball on a creek clogged with plastic waste on April 15, 2023 in Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)