Trolley men are recyclers, turning garbage into a little cash
IT’S cold and dawn is breaking, but for the legions of “trolley men” another gruelling day of grimy, back-breaking labour has begun. In fact, some of the trolley men have been awake for several hours, sifting through the garbage cans which line the streets in preparation for emptying by municipal garbage collectors.
Rummaging through the discarded waste, the men, in dirty and torn clothing, load their trolleys. Once full, the unofficial army of garbage recyclers pull their makeshift carts along the streets, competing with vehicles for up to 15km daily, to a recycling centre where they earn a minimum wage as they struggle to eke out a living in a country of high unemployment.
“John” and a friend, neither of whom will give their real names, nor will they allow their pictures to be taken as they’ve been arrested before and have their “camp” regularly destroyed by the police, talk about their lives and their work.
John and his friend have set up camp near a spruit which they use to bathe and wash their clothes. They urinate and defecate nearby. The smell is bad, garbage is strewn everywhere in the piles, still to be sorted for recycling, and insects, including blow flies, hover above us.
There’s a pause in the storms that have been rocking Joburg. Clothing is hung over the lower bars of an electricity pylon as the sun attempts to break through. John’s bed is a pile of filthy blankets. He and his colleagues sleep in the open after the police raided last week, destroying the simple shelters constructed from the grass and reeds which line the spruit.
The raids are weekly, with residential security teams joining the police. Some residents oppose these actions, saying it is inhumane, while others support the raids saying the encampments damage the environment and are an eye-sore. Regardless, as soon as the camps are torn down, the men return and rebuild.
“We’re safer sleeping here in the open than walking in the middle of the nearby city of Randburg on the weekend,” says John. He says he is unmarried and has no children, and has a black eye from the previous night when he was drunk and “socialising” in Randburg.
He admits to drinking fairly regularly but denies he is an alcoholic: “I drink on the weekends because my life is hard and I like to forget about my problems on the weekend.”
He claims to be 38 and an asylum seeker from Malawi, but life on the streets has made him look far older. “I was arrested and jailed for 10 months several years ago after I another guy hard,” John explains.
Despite the abject hardship, there is another side to this story. A story of human courage, the will to survive, and an employment opportunity provided to people who would otherwise starve – or turn to crime.
“I earn about R1 600 a month if I take several trolley-loads of garbage to be recycled each week. I collect plastic, metal, and paper.”
Robin Fisher, CEO of Split Rock recycling company in Strijdom Park in Randburg, where John and his friends take their laden trolleys, says his recycling business provides permanent employment for 30 men, and additional employment for about 150 trolley men.
“These guys would otherwise have no income and could turn to crime to survive. They are actually very hard-working and honest. In my many years in the business, there have never been any break-ins or stealing at the recycling centre, or in the surrounding area,” Fisher says.
A woman whose property borders John’s encampment supports Fisher’s assertion that the men are basically good souls. She says there have never been any problems from the men who sometimes come to her house requesting water.
The men get paid R1.50 a kilogram of steel, R1.30 a kilogram of boxes, R2.30 a kilogram of white paper which is much in demand, and R1.70 to R4 a kilogram of plastic, with milk bottles fetching the higher amount.
“The men are also doing a service to the environment because recycling has not been fully implemented in South Africa,” says Fisher. “Municipal garbage collectors, and even Pikitup, don’t sort garbage according to what can be recycled and what needs to be disposed of.”
As we are about to leave the informal camp, John’s friend, who has been silent, asks if we could help him get any job, to help make ends meet. – ANA