Three women do the heavy lifting to keep our city clean.
Let's work with reclaimers, not against them if we are to save our very limited landfill space.
Rhetoric surrounding waste reclaimers is often negative, but many residents do not know how valuable the service is that they perform.
Recyclable goods are mostly retrieved from rubbish that residents throw away in bins placed in the street for Pikitup to collect.
Prof. Melanie Samson, Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Johannesburg says, “Reclaimers have historically been treated as an inconvenience within waste management. However, over the past two decades, perspectives have begun to shift from classifying reclaimers as poor, marginal individuals eking out a meagre living by rummaging through other people’s trash, to essential, frontline workers in the recycling economy, particularly within the Global South.”
The paper met with three incredible reclaimers who work throughout the city but end each day in Brixton where they weigh their hauls.
Pikitup spokesperson Anthony Selepe says, “Reclaimers play a critical role in limiting waste that would ordinarily go to landfill. Frustrations residents and motorists have with them with does not lessen their role in working with us in waste management of the city.”
Paula Vilakazi (39) is a single parent and says, “It’s always a good day when residents sort their rubbish from their recycling materials as it means I don’t have to go through their waste. It’s hard work but it is fulfilling and great to know I am assisting in a small way to keeping our city landfills less full.”
Montoa Khoalie (42) has been a reclaimer for years. She hopes that ‘people will continue learning about the importance of recycling for the environment as it is so, so critical to living in a heathy city’.
Eva Mokoena (38) is chairperson of the African Reclaimers Organisation and is a reclaimer herself. “I am not a beggar and not a destitute person either. I earn an honest living, can manage my own time, and raise my three children well.”
Frustrations about reclaimers sorting their goods in parks and other spaces are well documented, but Mokoena says, “The answer is not to try and stop us doing our work but to work with us to get the city to make suitable spaces available to us to do this.”
When asked about concerns some communities have about security with reclaimers digging through their bins, these were the tips given:
- Get to know the reclaimers in your neighbourhoods and you will find the genuine ones will be more than happy to work with you to find a mutually agreeable understanding.
- Ask your reclaimers not to cover their faces and in ideal situations provide them with a bib or some identification so you know who is in your road and why.
- If you don’t want people going through your bin, the easiest solution is to sort your recycling into separate bags that you place next to the bin on collection days that can be easily taken.
André Aiton, managing director for Beagle Watch Security, urges caution when dealing with reclaimers. “Not all recyclers are genuine. Please do not put your bins out the evening before collection day and bring bins back into your property immediately after they have been emptied.”
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