By Kim Harrisberg
JOHANNESBURG, May 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In the shadows of the high-rise offices in Johannesburg’s wealthy Sandton district, Thembekile Mokoena concealed her recycling bag bulging with paper, plastic and tins under a tree.
Such strategies are a necessity for informal recyclers across the city, like Mokeona, who are often forcibly moved by private security guards paid to “clean up” urban spaces.
“If we go near the Sandton shopping centre to use the toilets, we are chased out and told we are disturbing the people who have come to shop,” said 34-year-old Mokoena, sitting on a bench as office workers in suits streamed past.
“Once I was beaten by security who told me he would lose his job if he let me inside.”
Mokoena is one of an estimated 200,000 waste pickers or reclaimers who navigate the racial, economic and physical divides of South Africa’s cities to sell tins, plastic and paper to recycling depots.
Across Africa, governments keen to modernise booming cities often view poor people making a living sifting through rubbish or hawking on the streets as a hindrance, and as usurpers of public spaces meant for formal businesses and wealthy residents.
Cities worldwide generated more than 1.3 billion tons of solid waste in 2010, which is predicted to reach 2.2 billion tons a year by 2025 – equal to the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza, each day, according to UN Habitat.
Increasing recycling would reduce deaths from pollution, flooding and planet-heating emissions, it said, calling for waste picking to be regulated to better protect workers.
Reclaimers recycle 80 to 90% of plastic and packaging in South Africa, saving authorities up to 750 million Rand ($53 million) in landfill costs, the Pretoria-based Council for Scientific and Industrial Research estimates.
Despite the valuable service reclaimers provide, they are stigmatised – on the street and at home.
“People assume that because we are dirty, we are drug addicts, but it’s not true. We are hard workers. We are entitled to move through the city too,” said Mokoena.
“I used to sell my body for food. My family said nothing. Now that I earn an honest living recycling, they are ashamed of me for working with trash. They have disowned me so I am forced to live on the streets.”
The Thomson Reuters Foundation interviewed more than 10 reclaimers across Johannesburg who said they have been beaten or arrested by private security and police for sorting their waste in public spaces or for not carrying valid work permits.
A spokesman for the city’s metropolitan police department, Wayne Minnaar, said he was not aware of any beatings, but recycling materials have been confiscated in public parks.
“We are aware of the immense contribution of the recyclers but we have to make arrests if they create a health hazard, or if they are undocumented,” he said, referring to the fact that many reclaimers from neighbouring Lesotho lack work permits.
