ENVIRONMENT-MALI: Making a Living by Recycling Garbage

By Almahady Cissé Reprint | | Print |

Almahady Cisse

BAMAKO, Aug 17 2002 (IPS) - Fifty waste dumps dot the streets of Bamako, the capital of Mali, and in almost all of them, scavengers make a living recycling other people’s trash.

The 50 dumps are filled each month with truckloads totalling more than 757,200 cubic metres of waste. These tonnes of trash are the base of commerce for the poor – the income it produces supports families.

The garbage-sellers hardly get along with the municipal sanitation workers. The problem continues to grow because of poverty.

‘’Bamako’s sanitary conditions are a big problem, the city is very dirty. This has generated a new phenomenon, that of garbage-sellers. This situation makes us look at our way of living and the dangerous ways it affects the environment and society,” says Ibrahima N’diaye, Mayor of Bamako.

Addressing a conference, titled ‘’The Problems of Cleanliness and Health’ ‘, in Bamako recently, N’diaye blamed poverty as the cause of the scavenging.

Mali, with a population of about 10 million, has a per capita income of about 157 U.S. dollars per annum, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Some 69 percent of Malians live below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 75 percent live in rural areas and 36.3 percent in urban areas. Mali’s external debt stands at 3.1 billion U.S. dollars, according to the World Bank.

Hamidou Berthé who is the General Manager of the Department of Urban Services, Roads and Sanitation, says around 250 people collect garbage from each of the city’s 50 dumps.

Although derogatorily known as ‘Merchants of Waste’, they are officially recognised as ‘rag-pickers’. They include homeless women, the elderly, but also young delinquents, who turn to garbage collecting at night, Berth said.

Legally, the scavengers are ‘’without permanent residence”. According to Berth, each has ‘’one or a number of specialities”.

Some look for coal, others for wood or canned food, or jewels (gold or silver) cast off in the garbage.

Asked why the government tolerates the presence of scavengers at the dumps, Berthé replied, ‘’We’ve tried every possible means to move them off, but in vain. They resist and adapt to every situation”.

Hawa Drame, also known as ‘’Madame Waste” is the head of the local ‘rag-pickers’ at Faladi, a suburb of Bamako.

A widow for ten years, she is in her forties raising four children. She came from San, in the region of Segou, 410 kilometres northeast of Bamako. Her youngest son died in 1993 and two of her daughters are domestics, while the third lives with an aunt.

Drame’s life as a ‘rag-picker’ started with the death of her husband. She was forced out of her community when she refused to succumb to tradition by having her husband’s older brother inherit her. Without resources, she moved to Bamako where she did not know anybody.

Upon arrival, she stayed in the outskirts of the city, by the dump. Soon she became the queen of the place.

Today she is one of the precursors of the ‘rag-picking’ trade in Mali. ‘’ Thank God,” she says. ‘’For doing this I make a living. I earn between 70 cents and 1.50 U.S. dollars a day. Sometimes companies ask us to deliver old plastic shoes for them.”

One company in the area, Fofy-Industrie, has confirmed Drame’s claims. Issa Traore, commercial director, says they order old shoes from the ‘rag-pickers’ for 15 U.S. dollars per sack.

In Berth’s view, the ‘rag-pickers’ have a negative impact on the municipal sanitation workers, because they scrape and scatter the garbage all over, although they also reduce the amount of waste to bury.

The technique used in Mali is to bury the garbage underground. The municipality of Bamako deposits the waste at Noumoubougou, 40 kilometres east of the city, where it has been allotted a 50-hectare piece of land by government, and at Dialakorobougou, 35 kilometres northeast of the city, where it has 45 hectares of land.

The city council has limited resources to get rid off the garbage. Each year, the city spends 1.4 million U.S. dollars, a third of its budget, on maintenance and sanitation.(FIN-IPS-AF-EN-DV-FRE-TRA-AC-AIT-JRC-MN-02)