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.
Source: Punch Metro
No comments:
Post a Comment