It is mostly believed that only a mad person or somebody who is
psychologically demented that would go to a heap of dirt, relax and
patiently rummage the dirt with hands and legs and analyse what he picks
at the dumpsite.
But in Nigeria, it is not just the mentally deranged that go to the
waste dump, sane, able-bodied men and women get their daily bread by
scavenging at dumpsites.
They could easily pass for mentally deranged people in their dirty
clothes. But a closer encounter with them would give them away as normal
Nigerians merely looking for survival.
Felicia Aje (not real name), a student of Lagos State Polytechnic, is
one of them. Aje spends her holidays and mid-semester breaks at the Oko
filling waste dump in Igando (Lagos), picking used bottles of soft
drinks, water and canned containers. Aje doesn’t even care that she is
being ridiculed by her mates who see what she does as dirty and menial
for an undergraduate. She confided in our correspondent that others
scavenging with her were undergraduates from different institutions.
While some other undergraduates would be having fun, traversing from one
joint or cinema to another enjoying their holidays, Aje is at a waste
dump, scavenging, while hoping she would get a junk that
she could sell.
Her fate is not any different from so many Nigerian youths and even
older men and women who have turned to waste dump scavengers in order to
earn a living.
These people pick empty bottled water, peel off the label, put them in a
sack and get them ready for buyers which are mainly recycling
companies.
The steady rise in the unemployment rate in the country has forced many
people to dwell and work at waste dumps so as to make a living. While
Lagos residents pay to dispose their wastes through the compactor
trucks, they, indirectly, feed these scavengers whose daily meals come
from what they make from the used bottles and junk they gather from
waste dumps.
The waste dumps at Igando in Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos
cannot be easily ignored; the smell that oozes from the site would make
anybody puke, but certainly not the scavengers.
Our correspondent who visited the site recently saw the scavengers
moving around looking for used bottles. They swarmed around the
compactor trucks. They couldn’t wait for the trucks to offload as they
were all set to pounce on the dirt, to pick as many bottles as possible.
A few others looked out for electronics, used home utensils and
clothes. Some of them went as far as wearing the used clothes to check
if they would fit.
As early as 6:00am, activities have begun at the site. Routinely, the
women ‘work’ (rummage through the dirt) from morning till 11:00am, after
which the men would take over. They would come to the site, well
dressed before changing into their ‘work’ clothes –rags, torn sandals
and shoes to protect their feet. There is no closing time, until
nightfall.
But no matter how dirty and demeaning this job is, the scavengers are not bothered.
Aje told our correspondent, “Many of us are not happy being here but we
have no choice. I come here to help my mum because she pays my school
fees and those of my junior ones from the proceeds of this business. I
cannot imagine how we would have survived if not for this place. That is
why anytime we are on break, I come here to work. The only thing there
is that we pay N100 daily before we start picking.”
She seems not to be alone in this situation, Martins is also a
scavenger. He told Saturday Punch, “I started picking used bottles here
two years ago when there was no other place to go. I finished secondary
school in 2011 but there was no money to further my education. Feeding
became a problem too until someone introduced me to this business.
“I survive with the money I make from here which is about N30,000 in a
month depending on the quantity of bottles I’m able to gather. What most
of us do here is to pick used bottles of soft drinks, bottled water and
the like, pack them in a sack, as you can see (pointing to the sacks
assembled at a corner ) and deliver them to the Indians who buy them,
crush and export. We pay the loaders, mostly the abokis, and settle the
LAWMA officials here.”
Indeed, the scavenging ‘business’ has no age barrier. Our correspondent
met an old woman in her 60s, Mrs. Lasisi, who said it was hunger that
pushed her to the business when she couldn’t find any other thing to do.
“I am 63 but I don’t want to die of hunger, so I come here to work from
morning till 11am before the boys take over. I am a widow and I have a
young boy who lives with me; it is the money that I make from here that
sustains us, and I pay his school fees. I pick the used bottles and sell
them to those who buy them here for N20 per kilogramme. I don’t have
another place to go and I must survive.”
Esther, a mother of one, is also a scavenger at the site who claimed she
had to resign her job from a government agency in order to get into the
scavenging business full time.
She said, “I was being paid N15,000 per month where I worked but I had
to resign. My salary couldn’t sustain me and my nine-year-old boy. I
paid N10,000 to register with the LAWMA people here before I could
start, likewise many others here. But these days, people don’t register
again, it’s free now.
“I know that people make money from here, so I had to come here, and
thank God, we are better now. I don’t allow my boy to come here because
of the stigma and fear of infection. What you make at the end of the day
depends on how many bottles you are able to pick, that is why you see
people falling over themselves to pick bottles.
“We now have more hands than before, which has made the picking more
tedious because many people are contending for the same used bottles.”
Dele Oni, an ND holder, does the scavenging work as a part time work. “I
work with a company at Ilupeju where they pay me N21,000 monthly and we
work shifts; any day that I’m off duty, I work here to augment my pay. I
also help people to load their bottles in vehicles and it is N1,000
flat per loading,” he said.
Opeyemi Adebuji is a ‘specialist’ in peeling off labels. She also
claimed to be a student in one of the higher institutions in the
country.
When our correspondent got to her, she was peeling, whilst playing music
on her phone, shaking her body and enjoying the moment all at once. She
said, “I come here when I’m less busy in school. I use the money I make
here to sponsor my education.
“The bottles are categorised as high grade and low grade, canned
containers are high grade, so we separate them from others and we sell
them at a higher price compared to others.”
The scavengers are not alone at this particular waste dump. There are
food joints, hawkers of snacks, barbers and battery charging points. The
untarred road that leads to the waste dump from the main road features a
number of hawkers trading by the road side and items sold include
sugarcane, sauced meat, pap and tea. Customers throng these hawkers to
have a meal before starting the day’s job.
The operators of the food joints located on the hill (made of waste)
usually have busy morning as they attend to customers. With varieties
ranging from beans, rice, eba to pastries, scavengers take time out to
patronise the food vendors during their ‘break’ period. Some of them
would prefer to take condensed milk which they claimed, gave them
instant energy.
Those who couldn’t get seats at the food vendor’s place wouldn’t mind
sitting on the waste dump and even placing their food on the dirt as
make-shift table.
But residents of the area are certainly not happy living in the midst of dirt.
Mr. Kayode Olaolu, a resident and landlord, condemned how Igando
community had been turned the area a waste dump. “I would have relocated
to another place if I had money. When they started using this site,
government promised to fumigate our premises from time to time and to
ensure that the waste were kept underground but they rarely fumigate
this place and the waste are forming hills.”
When asked if the site hadn’t affected their health, he said, “God has
been protecting us; we don’t fall sick here. The only problem we have is
the smell. Sometimes, we are forced to close all our windows and endure
the profuse heat and it is more terrible during the rainy season.”
However, medical experts have warned that exposure to all kinds of waste
could be harmful and since most of the diseases that could be contacted
from a dumpsite are communicable, it could be a threat to the society
at large.
According to Dr. Rotimi Adesanya, a public health physician, “People who
are exposed to waste and those who use bare hands to touch those things
like metals and iron are prone to have infections such as HIV, contact
dermatitis, skin disease, infective dermatitis, scabies, ringworm
(bacterial infections) which can appear on their bodies, and systemic
illness (such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever, malaria, etc). They
are more serious because they are in the blood and most of these
diseases are communicable which is not good for the society at large.
Some of them might not be affected but they might be carriers of the
diseases. Since these bacteria are microscopic, it is better to avoid
contact with them.”
Also, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, a professor of reproductive endocrinology,
said, “Waste of any form is toxic; so there is need for care in handling
them. This is because several problems could arise when exposed to
them, such as, skin infection, respiratory infection, cancer, lung
disease, cardiovascular problem, depression of the immune system and
liver problem which are all dangerous to the health.
“Household and commercial waste consist of different things, such as
food, needles, metals, bio hazards and human waste which are all harmful
to human health when decomposed or decayed. Also, contact with disposed
needle can cause contamination which may lead to viral hepatitis. These
are reasons why waste site should be sited far away from the people and
be made inhabitable.”
In his reaction, the Managing Director, Lagos State Waste Management
Authority, Mr. Ola Oresanya, said, “Government is aware that people
scavenge on the site, but they are not authorised. We decided to look
the other way now because of the socio-economic effects of sending them
off the site.”
He said LAWMA chose to leave the scavengers so that they could have something doing.
He admitted that the odour could be offensive but not directly
injurious; he agreed with medical experts that contact with sharp
objects on the site could lead to infection. “If they move on the site
without the proper protective equipment such as boots, they can step on
contaminated sharp objects which can cause tetanus infection,” he added.
Oresanya, however, said that, “Since we did not authorise them, we
cannot enforce their compliance with the use of proper protective
equipment. Our responsibility towards them is only advisory. But if we
authorise them, we have to ensure that they comply, unless we move them
out of the site.” He added that once the recycling plant planned by
government starts operation, the authority would make sure that people
are kept off the dump site as there would not be much to pick on the
site.
When confronted with the allegation that some LAWMA officials collect
bribe from scavengers, he said, “I don’t have such facts. If the
scavengers have such facts, they can come to us and I will handle it.”
He added that government is trying its best to fumigate the area from
time to time and ensure that residents around the site are protected.
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Monday, 24 February 2014
Undergraduates Make Fortune Scavenging In Lagos Waste Dump
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