BADIN: Rag-pickers whose livelihood is dependent on recycling factories are facing hardships across the province after a ban and the sealing of recycling and cardboard factories by the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa). Cardboard and recycling factories had been sealed in Hyderabad and Kotri districts on the pretext of violation of law and regulations. These factories had failed to install treatment plants to control pollution. The rag-pickers earn their livelihood by collecting scrap and other waste material and later selling it to recycle factories. The closure of cardboard and recycling factories would increase unemployment in the country. Over a hundred shops deal with recycle stuff alone in District Badin. Meanwhile, the former president of Peoples Labour Union, District Badin, Mohammad Iqbal said that members of over a 1,000 poor families were engaged in the picking up of cardboards and other waste materials are affected due to the closure of these recycling and cardboard factories in the district.