Living off trash

A lack of jobs has forced men and women at Oshakati to make a living from collecting recyclable materials at the town's dump.

Some of them have lived like this for 19 years.

Namibian Sun yesterday spent the morning at the dump on the outskirts of Oshakati, talking to the determined and desperate men and women trying to earn a living there.

They spend most of their weekdays at the dump, collecting recyclable items such as glass, plastic, tins and other metal objects. They sort them and bag them for collection by a buyer who pays them at the end of the month.

They say they are paid N$100 for a tonne of semi-crushed bottles, N$45 for a bag of aluminium tins and N$20 for non-aluminium tins.

According to them it takes them three to five days to fill a bag with crushed bottles, depending on availability.

Sigriti Bernard (49), Hendrina Nangolo (47) and Kapuka Jeremia (49) have been at the dumpsite for 19 years.

They say unemployment and poverty cannot be defeated by sitting at home but only by the will to do something that can earn an income.

Recalling how they started, Bernard says she remembers when she used to buy a carry bag for N$1 at a local supermarket and go to the dump to collect recyclable materials that she sold at scrap yards.

Bernard says although the income she made was never enough, she managed to buy corrugated-iron sheets to build a shack and furnish it.

“Apart from the corrugated-iron sheets we bought, there are a number of assets we managed to buy with the money.

I also used the money to raise my kids, to pay their school fees and buy food for my family,” she says.

Nangolo says poverty at home and the fact that she did not want to become an alcoholic drove her to exploit any possible opportunity to make a living. Collecting recyclable items was the only option for her.

“It was a difficult time. We could not find jobs and still can't seem to find them and with hunger and not wanting to be at shebeens drinking from sunrise until sunset like other unemployed do, we opted to come to the dumpsite to make a living here,” Nangolo says.

Lahia David (36) says they would like to be paid more for their hard work collecting, sorting and crushing bottles.

The group work under the blazing sun and they say it would make a big difference if they had some shade.

Few of them wear any protective clothing. Some were spotted wearing school shoes while others had boots on.



Another challenge they face is that others sometimes steal the materials they have gathered and sorted. They say people with cars get access to the dump at night or on weekends, load the materials and drive off.



They say they learned a lot at a workshop that the Oshakati town council held last week.

“We did not know that it was old-fashioned to crush bottles by hand as there are machines to do that. We hope that someday someone will bring those machines to us, which will make our work easier and more fun,” says Jeremia.

The group also shared how they feel when they come across bottles lying around in the town.

“When I see a bottle it reminds me of my work and if I am not carrying anything at the time, I will pick it up and bring it to the dumpsite and crush it,” Paulina Thomas says.

All of them say there is never a discarded bottle or tin lying around at their homes, as they do not like seeing litter. They urge fellow Namibians to keep their environment clean.

KENYA KAMBOWE