Turning waste into money

58-year-old Eric Ngesa packs some of the polythene paper bags collected from the garbage at Kibarani Dumpsite in Mombasa County on Sunday 17th July 2016. (PHOTO: KELVIN KARANI/ STANDARD)

Tattered sacks hang on their backs as they dash to an approaching solid waste truck. A flock of Indian house crows feeding on rotting garbage disperse.

The birds, too, immediately start flying towards the truck and a vicious fight for the “treasure” discharged by the truck ensues.

It is the daily routine of young families scavenging in Mombasa’s mountains of solid waste. They are loathed and despised. But that does not bother them.

It is a business punctuated by gang wars, infectious diseases and rivalry pitting humans against scavenging birds and pigs at Mombasa’s Kibarani and Mwakirunge dumpsites.

They rummage through the heap of rubbish with their bare hands, oblivious of the dangers like infections from the toxic chemicals and medical waste they expose themselves to.

Kibarani and Mwakirunge sites are the biggest out of the 63 documented landfills in Mombasa County. Mombasa residents generate an estimated 800 tonnes of solid waste daily.

Zainab Ali, a 25-year-old mother of one, wakes up on the crack of dawn. With her six-month-old baby tightly strapped on her back, she tactfully digs through the heeps of garbage at the Kibarani dumpsite in search of fortunes.

She is one of the 350 families living in rusty iron sheet thatched and crudely built shanties at the foot of mountains of garbage off Kibarani Causeway linking Mombasa Island and West of mainland.

Her teary but sharp eyes, protruding from a soot and dust clogged face, tell a tale of the struggle and resilience of young mothers scavenging at Kibarani and Mwakirunge to fend their families.

In Kibarani, boys and girls aged between 5 and 12 years run into the dark clouds of smoke to chase away the crows as their parents rummage through the mounds of waste with bare hands. The kids, however, dread the swines that roam around in search of food.

Investors in the tourism sector and most families around see these landfills as eyesores and have frequently described them as a “chain of shame hung on Mombasa’s leadership”.

But for Zainab and her ilk in the sprawling slums near these dumpsites, the mounds of waste is a treasure-trove from which they eke a living daily.

“I wake up at 5am every day before the county officers set the waste on fire. I’m happy today I’ve managed to collect a ‘net-and-a-half’ of assorted items,” said Zainab. A net is a tattered sack they use to collect and store the items.

She then glances at her baby, adjusts the baby strap and says: “This is the way I was raised and the only way I know I can raise my child.”

At Mwakirunge in Kisauni, 17 kilometres from Kibarani, we meet Neema Kenga, 25. Other than scavenging, she also sells palm wine, popularly known locally as mnazi to over 150 men and women working at Mwakirunge site.

Next to her kiosk, children aged five to seven years, the middle-aged and the old are busy digging through mountains of garbage in search of items like plastic bottles, tin cans, nylon polyethylene papers graded as HD, PP and LD to sell.

In April last year, Kenga developed a skin condition. To date, scars are evident on her skin. But she claims to have developed immunity and learned how to identify toxic or hazardous materials in the heap of garbage.

“In April last year, I developed a very a severe skin condition which started from the hands and later spread to the whole body. The doctor linked it to my job,” said Kenga.

Environmentalists and doctors warn of serious dangers people like Kenga are exposing themselves to as a result of handling hazardous waste dumped in those landfills.

The battle for the “treasures” go on not only in the 63 dumping sites but also at waste trucks stationed on the side of some streets like Musanifu Kombo near the Kenya Revenue Authority and MacKinnon Market.

The trucks stationed in strategic locations by the county administration are left for long before being emptied and emit awful smell as young men ransack the waste in search of recyclable items.

Denis Mwema quit his job as a loader at a local transport company 15 years ago and started working as a ‘forager’ at the dumpsites. He operates a makeshift office where he collects and buys recyclable solid waste from the young mothers. He then transports them to small recycling firms in Mombasa.

Mwema says the business has enabled him to purchase an old one-tonne truck to facilitate the transportation of the products to small recycling plants in the county.

The white truck is a modification of an old matatu which can carry up to 500 kilogrammes of solid waste.

“The truck makes three trips per week. I transport 400 kilogrammes of plastic bottle per trip and I make Sh20,000. I buy a kilo at Sh7 or Sh5 from other collectors,” he says as he sips his mnazi drink.

The father of one says the business is more well-paying than his earlier job at the transport company. He says the business has lifted him out of poverty.

Edwin Nyumba, 32, moved to Mwakirunge after gang wars pitting the so-called upcountry against local scavengers erupted at Kibarani dump site in late 1990s.

He said his relocation was also caused by sustained assault and raids on them by security officers at Kibarani who alleged the dump site was a safe haven for criminals.

“I came to Mwakirunge when I was 25 after ruthless gangs intensified attacks on the so-called upcountry people at Kibarani. Scores of boys were killed,” said Nyumba.

After staying in a makeshift house made of polythene papers for two years, he moved to a modern one-bedroom house in Mishomoroni.

“When I was courting my wife, I did not tell her the kind of job I do. I married her in April 2008 and we have two kids now. She has since come accept what I do because I provide for the family’s needs,” he said.

His story is shared by hundreds of young men rummaging through landfills for a living in Mombasa. Most of them make between Sh100 and Sh130 per kilogramme of cardboard and twice as much for tin cans per day.

Large-scale scavengers who also buy from the small ones have registered an organisation called Pickers Waste Group with a membership of 16. Mwema is one of them.

“Waste is money. I pay my bills and make a saving for my one-year-old girl from this work. When people complain about the increase of solid waste in Mombasa, for us it is a booming business,” he said.

Pickers Waste Group chairman Moti Moti said the group has helped them negotiate better prices with buyers or recycling firms.

“The agents of recycling firms used to divide us and ended up paying us low prices. But we can now negotiate with them and get better prices,” Moti said.