Filthy, toxic and tough...
The Grahamstown municipal landfill is home to a group of homeless men from nearby locations. Their livelihoods are dependent on the food and recyclable materials thrown in the form of waste from in and around town. They all say that poverty and lack of jobs forced them to live and scavenge on the dumpsite.
The driveway to the dump is a gravel bush-lined road. There are no structures or ablution facilities. The grader growls across the site, shifting and levelling heaps of waste strewn across the area, while scattered groups sort through it. The only structure there is a tiny security room, which can hardly fit in two persons. The young men loitering by the entrance inside the dumpsite normally chase after vehicles entering the dumpsite. They hope to be the first to reach the waste the cars brings to the dumpsite.
Rubbish and waste, once at the dump site, is immediately ripped apart with bare hands. The people at the dumpsite scavenge for anything from food, household uses to recyclable material such as copper, cardboard, plastic bottles, glass bottles and aluminium.
The owner of the nearby scrapyard said around 60 people regularly pass through his gate selling their bounty. While there are two scrapyards in the dumpsite's vicinity, there are many pickers, some of whom are transported to a different scrapyards to search for goods and many of whom sell their findings to a buyer who visits the site.
There are more than 60 pickers, among them pensioners from Grahamstown's townships who depend on the dumpsite for their livelihood. They come to the dumpsite as their social grants are insufficient to support them and their families.
For decades, unemployment in Grahamstown has been between 70% and 80 %. There are 11 individuals who live at the dumpsite, although the number of pickers changes throughout the day. Some of the pickers are still of schoolgoing age.
A 33-year-old man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he has been visiting the dumpsite since 2002 and would like to have a normal job. He recycles cardboard, coke plastic bottles and papers from which he makes R60, R50 or R40 a day.
Another young man commented that there is at least food to be found at the dumpsite, unlike in the location where the cupboards are forever empty. He said people like him would like others to know about their situation in order for them to receive the necessary support from the government and the public.
A 27-year-old man who started going to the dumpsite in 2007 and has lived there since 2012, said the only government officials who ever visited them were from the Department of Health. The officials, he said, brought them soup and bread and tested them for different diseases.
He said that in July 2017 the municipality had demolished the structure they used to live in, forcing them to live in the bush. They said the municipality preferred to bring people from the location for dumpsite part-time cleaning jobs instead of them.
The 27-year-old man also said the three main political parties, the ANC, DA and EFF, only visited them to campaign for votes. While representatives of these political parties had advised the site-dwellers to protect themselves from harmful materials, they had not been provided with safety gear to wear while sorting out rubbish for food and recyclables. • Phillip Nyalungu is a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism student who spent several weeks getting to know the dump's residents and visitors and was greatly moved by the experience.