Fabrice Monteiro travelled to the most polluted places in Africa and created terrifying characters who roamed their midst dressed in eerie debris. They are spirits, he says, on a mission to make humans change their ways. Informed by Africa’s environmental problems, Fabrice Monteiro’s photographs aim to highlight urgent ecological issues all over the world. His series “The Prophecy” is on show at Photo Basel 2017 until 18 June. (Photo by Fabrice Monteiro/Photo Basel 2017/Mariane Ibrahim Gallery/The Guardian)

Women cry as they look for reusable household materials after fire broke at slums in Kadivali area of Mumbai, India, Monday, December 7, 2015. Hundreds of homes were reportedly destroyed as fire tenders labored to reach the source in the heavily congested area. (Photo by Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo)

A garbage collector looks for recyclable waste at a dump in Erbil, in Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdistan region, February 21, 2016. (Photo by Azad Lashkari/Reuters)

In this Monday, June 20, 2016 photo, a Palestinian girl plays in a barrel as her mother bakes bread for a Ramadan dinner at their house in el-Zohor slum, on the outskirts of Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by Khalil Hamra/AP Photo)

In this photo taken Friday, December 9, 2016, young ballerinas practice under the instruction of Kenyan ballet dancer Joel Kioko, 16, in a room at a school in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

A military police officer patrols in the Roquette Pinto shantytown, part of the Mare slum complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. The Brazilian army has begun to pull out of one of Rio de Janeiro's most violent slums, with police assuming responsibility for security in the area. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

Rag pickers collect recyclable material at a garbage dump in New Delhi November 19, 2014. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

Dan surrounded by seven days of her own rubbish in Pasadena, California. If you've never thought about how much rubbish you throw away an honest photographic series will open your eyes. Men, women, couples and families with young children have been photographed lying on their backs surrounded by a week's worth of their own rubbish – from old cartons of milk, used nappies and even tampons. The startling series “Seven Days of Garbage” by Californian photographer Gregg Segal is an unforgettable reminder of the amount of waste a human collects in just seven days. (Photo by Gregg Segal/Barcroft Media)