In the footsteps of the waste picker

Never in my life had I imagined that I would dress up in an overall, walk the streets before the crack of dawn, and purposefully put my hands into – not one, but a dozen – black, wheely bins on waste collection day. “Oh! a condom, nice!” I said as I realized what I had just touched. We all burst out laughing at my harsh introduction, to what one might come across in a stranger’s trash.

It was a crispy cold, winter morning in May 2022. Wearing a green overall, with a thick layer of clothes underneath the jacket, and worn-out safety shoes, Sebakeng Mofubelu, grabs his neatly prepared trolley, gloves, and mask, and starts walking in the direction of Von Willich Avenue, Clubview, Centurion. His short stature and puffy cheeks create a somewhat dwarf-like image, with his black beanie mimicking a pointy Dwarf hat. As he walks, fast and determined, pulling his trolley behind him, I suddenly remember the story of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Just like the Dwarfs in the story, Sebakeng works long hours in brutal conditions, every day. Unlike the Dwarfs in the fairy tale, no beautiful princess is waiting, with a cooked meal, for his return. His princess lives far-far away, at their home in Lesotho, where she looks after their 2 sons.

I was honoured to be this man’s student for a whole day, learning about the extreme difficulties of his job but also, to my surprise, the absolute beauty of the waste picker’s heart, whose job is often misunderstood and frowned upon by people just like myself. They call themselves the Bagerezi, which means “to hustle”, however, you might know them better as “the trolley people”, “the homeless” or more formally “the waste pickers.” These men and women are seen all over the city, pulling their trolleys behind them, often causing havoc with the rush hour traffic. They sort through household waste, looking for plastic, paper, and glass that they can take to the recycling plants in exchange for money. This is how they make a living.

On the way to my first lesson about waste picking, Sebakeng tells me a bit about his family. “My youngest son is a troubled boy”, he said, while we walk at the speed of light, in the darkness of 5 am, to ensure that we arrive at the job, on time. “He is not like the eldest boy, he struggled to finish his Matric, but now, ja’, he finished last year, at least”.

Sebakeng had been working as an informal waste picker in South Africa for the past 15 + years. He started in Johannesburg and was forced to move to Pretoria a couple of years ago.

“I do this job because I must pay for my children to have an education because I don’t want them to suffer like me.” He smiles, and his eyes light up, as he starts to talk about his eldest son. By the end of this year, his eldest boy will finish his last year at the university in Lesotho, where he studies Agriculture. “He wants to become a farmer,” he says as the trolley comes to a sudden halt. He bends over to pull something from the soil, while he continues, “ I must never take out a plant or a tree like this one, then he will run to protect it.” He holds his hands in a protective circle over a hem of dry grass in an illustration of his son’s mannerisms. Sebakeng mentions that he can only hope that his youngest son will also be accepted into university so he can study. He is aware that, if this dream comes true, he will have to keep working to pay for his son’s studies. “I will work every day, Ma’am, so my children can live better lives.”

After walking for approximately 1km, we arrive at the first set of bins, neatly parked outside the gate of a residential estate. The Bagarezi are extremely territorial. Sebakeng tells me that there had been incidents where the waste pickers would attack and badly injure each other, should one try to overstep a boundary into another’s territory. This residential estate and every bin outside its gate are part of his territory.

Ready to begin our hunt for valuable treasures, Sebakeng prepares his trolley, with a well-rehearsed placing of the supporting planks on the base, and securing them with a rope, that I imagine, had seen better days. He places a large, woven plastic bag, strategically onto the supports while he explains what we are looking for today. “We used to collect newspapers and lots of cardboard, but since the worst of Covid-19 stopped, they no longer buy the newspapers from us, and the cardboard is not worth much.” He then takes a plastic container from me, that I found in the same bin where I found that condom. “ You see here at the bottom?” he uses the flashlight on his phone, as it’s still pitch-dark outside, “It is written here, number 5 PP. Yes, this one we can take it.” Armed with new knowledge, I continue my search for items that will fill his bag with as much potential as possible.

The Bagerezi in Clubview, Centurion, is one of three main waste picker communities in the area. Their camp, situated behind the Sasol Garage just off the Jean Avenue offramp, is constructed with green shade nets and poles, creating different segments for piling, and sorting the community waste. Before Covid-19 hit South Africa in March 2020, the Clubview Bagerezi all lived together in an army tent that “Angels” placed for them, along with two mobile toilets and a water storage tank. Due to Covid-19 and the requirements for social distancing, they had to build a couple of informal shacks around the tent. The men moved into the shacks, so the women and children could live in the tent, where it is slightly warmer and protected from the harsh elements of mother nature. The camp is quiet and peaceful. Sebakeng is the leader of this community. He represents their group at municipal level by attending the meetings and conveying the messages to his fellow residents.

At a second camp, opposite the parking area of the Gautrain in West Ave, Centurion is a slightly different scene. The Marikana camp, headed by Foster Mathonsi and his right-hand man, Skhumbuzo Lekuleni, is what one might refer to as, the more clamorous radical wing of the three informal communities. “Yes, we drink too much, but we are good people.” The words of Skhumbuzo during a brief visit to their camp on Thursday evening. According to Foster, during a formal interview at a Burger King outlet nearby, the following Thursday: “The foreigners make up approximately 40% of the community and are the ones who do the waste picking every day. The remaining 60% of the community consists of South Africans who prefer to do “piece jobs” like car guarding, selling cigarettes, and so forth.”

The Third camp is called the Mushroom camp. This group is referred to as the aggressive community where mugging and the fear of me – a woman - being attacked were of major concern to the protective gentlemen from the church, who initially introduced me to the Bagerezi. I was advised to rather not visit there due to these concerns and the rising unrest, caused by the alleged relocation plans on the horizon.

Back in the streets of Clubview, the sun starts to rise, while we work our way through 11 bins in front of the residential estate. The residents bring their bins to the front gate when they leave for work, unfortunately sometimes too late for Sebakeng to sort them through. While we waited for a couple more bins, he explained to me how he believes that this business of recycling can be a massive business, but that he struggles to convince the other members of his community to work together and partner up to get things done faster. “They don’t see the future,” he said. He continues to explain that some of the waste pickers unfortunately spend their days looking for alcohol bottles that still have some liquor left in them. This leads to them becoming drunk and unable to focus on the job. According to Sebakeng, the guys that work hard to fill their bags, are mostly foreigners like him, who need the money to support their families back home.

As the day progressed, we spoke to various Bagerezi working the bins. Their stories follow the same basic pattern of very early mornings, long-distance travelling, little money to show, and poor living conditions. In most cases, however, we saw pearly whites and received a warm welcome and friendly replies from each one we interviewed.

The enemy is coming

“Am I going too fast?”, he asks me as he increases his already fast pace to an almost jogging, towards the last set of bins. “We need to hurry Ma`am, the enemy is coming!”, he shouts as he continues to increase his speed. A sudden urgency took over the calm atmosphere of the morning and everyone became focused and rushed. My body is overcome with adrenaline, as a familiar beeping sound of the waste truck, echoes down the alley. Sebakeng instructs me to quickly work through the last couple of bins, reminding me that once the waste truck empties the bins, the game is over.

With our bag filled to the top, Sebakeng leads the way home. The journey is not an easy one because the trolley is extremely heavy, and the road is mostly uphill. An impatient driver has not taken lightly us obstructing the road. Sebakeng explains that this is a common occurrence, but that he understands, and tries to keep out of the way, where possible. He is just thankful that he has not been run over or bumped like some of his colleagues.

When the Bagerezi return home, they rest for half an hour and then they start sorting through the stock they found.

Sebakeng explains that he collects and sorts during the month. At the end of the month, a truck will come to collect it. The highest amount received currently is R5 per kilogram for clear plastic bottles, such as coke bottles. On average, Sebakeng and his partner, make R3 000.00 combined, per month.

“Ma`am”, he says when he sees me staring at hundreds of bottle caps on the ground, “The caps of the bottles do not go for recycling. I collect them for the guy that uses them to buy wheelchairs. The people allow me to collect their rubbish, so I must also give back by doing something good.”

Life for the Bagerezi looks grim

Stefan van der Westhuizen is the heart behind the NPO, RubiconZA, and The Zion project, which focuses on primarily the wellbeing and the role of the Bagerezi in the recycling economy. He believes that the Bagerezi is unappreciated and undervalued. During an official interview, Stefan told us that the existence of the Bagerezi in its informal state is threatened. He explained that the public and the leaders of our country, perceive them to be a threat to the resident’s safety and the condition of the informal settlements to be the cause of depreciation of the residential areas. With that said and understood, he mentioned that the Bagerezi in Clubview has been asking the municipality, during meetings, for permission to rent space for themselves to conduct their business and build more, formal-looking, houses, but to no avail.

At a recent municipal meeting, Sebakeng was informed that their community will be forced to relocate this year. He looks down at his tired feet while he says: ”Eish Ma`am, I don’t know where we are going or how we will do our job. Even now, we don’t have any water. Usually, the truck comes to bring water, but it didn’t come for 2 weeks.”

Stefan believes that this is the first sign of a relocation plan. “The municipality withholds basic human rights from the people that they want to relocate,” he said. He then supplied us with a voice recording of a meeting held by, Alderman Peter Sutton, the ward councillor of ward 78 of the City of Tshwane. The recording is dated 19 May 2022.

Amongst other things, Sutton updates the community on the progress of the relocation of the informal waste pickers, including the involvement of home affairs, who need to deal with the undocumented foreigners in terms of the immigration act. After making a statement on the importance of recycling, the councillor emphasized, in this recording, that there are talks of integrating the waste pickers into privatized waste plants ensuring that the economic benefits remain with them. He makes special note that these plants will be situated outside of the residential areas. This will, according to the Councillor, ensure that the trolleys are no longer seen in the streets and the “mushroom” pop-up settlements are no longer of concern. However, according to Stefan, this will mean the end of the Bagerezi and people like Sebakeng. “They cannot recycle if they cannot reach the bins in the streets of the residential areas.” He explained.

Over a brief telephonic interview, Councillor Sutton explained that the plans for the integration of the waste pickers had not been finalised yet, but he said: “The Tshwane municipality had appointed a consultant to assist with evidence-based information to the formalization of the informal waste management strategy for the city of Tshwane.” Mr Sutton shared his personal frustration regarding the fact that it is taking the municipality such a long time to devise a workable plan. “It is important to note,” he said, “that compiling a workable strategy is in the hands of the municipality and not up to individuals who often have their own agendas.” He confirmed that the process of relocating these informal settlements will however continue without the alternative plan being in place. “The situation to informal waste reclaiming as it is at the moment, is completely out of control and structure to this is urgently needed.” He added.

Mr Sutton shared his appreciation for the hard work that the waste pickers endure, but he believes that a solution to benefit all stakeholders must be the focus. “The entire value chain of all community stakeholders must be considered, and their rights protected.”

After a long, insightful, and exhausting day as a student, the desire for a warm shower overwhelmed me. “Ma`am, I want to thank you for allowing me to be a teacher for you, today.” These were the last words Sebakeng said to me as I left. With 52 years of life experience behind him, this hard-working “Dwarf”, seems to have no intention of parking his trolley any time soon. He is a Bagerezi, and proudly so.

Walking towards the camp exit, one last scene captivates me. A brown-white fluffy teddy bear, that I imagine, was loved by someone a long time ago, hanging by its neck in front of a green shade net, surrounded by, what most people consider to be, worthless trash.

Written by: Jackie Skeen

17/06/2022

UCT Feature Journalism course - final assignment