Gold in recycling cans and turning trash into manure

By Joe Ombuor

Beer, wine or even soft drinks are these days packed in handy cans or containers that are easy to carry.

But the cans end up becoming some of the worst bulk garbage that is hazardous to health, as it provides breeding ground for parasites.

Yet the cans, if well harnessed, are a valuable source of livelihood, providing employment and money.

They are a source of aluminium, a precious metal not mined in any substantive quantities in Kenya. That is what a former Nairobi bar worker-turned-garbage collector discovered.

Sarah Higgins with some of the plastic poles she and her husband Mike have produced. [PHOTO: MBUGUA KIBERA/STANDARD]

Today, Mr Sammy Kamau extracts the metal from waste cans, raking in money and providing the increasingly scarce employment to the youth.

"Next time you buy a sufuria, know that the aluminium in it might have passed through my hands," jokes Kamau, a middle-aged father of five.

After stumbling on the hidden gem, Kamau engaged youths who collect the tins from garbage dumps and other places.

"I pay the youths, many of them street children, paying Sh20 for a kilogramme of the cans which I heat to extract the aluminium lining the inner layer. I sell the resultant pellets at Sh35 apiece. The pellets are snapped up within no time, because they are cheaper than imported aluminium," he says.

He uses a magnet to determine the amount of precious metal in a tin can.

"The work I am doing now brings in many times the Sh3,000 monthly salary I earned as a bar waiter 10 years ago," he says.

"I do not mind resembling garbage while at work, provided I am able to earn a decent living from it and help others who would be begging or stealing," he says.

Another success story of recycled material is retired career truck driver Mr Andrew Macharia Gakunju.

Bumper harvests

When, in 1998, he took up organic farming to keep busy during his remaining years of active life and started grubbing into putrid garbage for manure, many wrote him off as a non-starter.

Undaunted and resilient to a fault, Gakunju, who had transported beer for Kenya Breweries for well over 30 years, was soon reaping bumper harvests from his ancestral land in Mukurwe-ini, Nyeri District.

What looked like magic had people trooping to him for a share.

He sold them manure manufactured from garbage until he could not cope with the demand. Solution? Go to Nairobi and turn the city’s choking garbage into manure for his people.

In Nairobi, Gakunju successfully talked a few self-employed friends and acquaintances into forming a society to facilitate acquisition of a city council plot for the new venture.

They secured one near where his family lived in Maringo Estate, immediately attracting garbage from surrounding business and homes.

The plot, christened ‘City Garbage Recyclers’, in no time resembled a garbage dump, prompting Gakunju and his lieutenants to work overtime.

As mounds of manure grew, Gakunju ran into hurdles of transporting the stuff back home to Nyeri and resigned himself to operating within Nairobi.

Marketing bottlenecks meant innovation to keep afloat. With little assistance from non-governmental organisations, City Garbage Recyclers launched into the making of energy saving brickets from the abundant charcoal waste, sawdust and discarded cardboard.

He fought and won battles that included spirited campaigns by private developers to snatch the plot.

One event led to another as Gakunju’s reputation in the garbage industry grew, earning him recognition that saw him travel to Zanzibar to assist a foreign company manage the historic Indian Ocean city’s garbage dump.

He returned to steer City Garbage Recyclers to greater heights at the expiry of his Zanzibar contract.

No sooner was he back than Gakunju secured funding from the United Nations Development Programme for a plastic recycling facility at his premises and a resource centre. Today, the company is a popular destination for researchers in microbiology, and scholars from local and international institutions. University students come there for attachment.

City Garbage Recyclers has become a recognised institution that issues certificates for short courses in garbage management.