It’s 04:00 on a cold Tuesday morning in the middle of winter. You are snug in bed on your electric blanket under your warm duvet.
About an hour later your alarm goes off and you dread having to get up. Nonetheless, you put on your plush dressing gown and go to the kitchen where the refrigerator is filled to the brim with breakfast options.
After enjoying your first warm meal of the day and your first cup of coffee, you take a hot shower and put on one layer of clothing after another to face the freezing cold outside.
It’s nearly 07:00 and you rush to your car to get out of the cold as quickly as possible. On your way out you notice someone digging through the content of your wheelie bin. You roll your eyes and feel annoyed as he is blocking your view.
Little do you know what his morning has been like.
It’s 04:00 on that same cold morning and he gets up for work. There is no heater or electric blanket. He scrapes together whatever pieces of clothing he can find. Without breakfast, a shower, and proper winter clothing, he takes on the dark streets of Roodepoort.
For the next three hours he climbs a number of steep hills while pushing his trolley, and digs through countless refuse bins in the freezing weather without any form of insulation.
It’s now about 07:00 and he encounters yet another disgruntled resident disproving of they way he tries to make a living.
This is what mornings are like for dustbin diggers. Princess informal settlement’s Justice Masamane represents the thousands of recyclers who sift through countless garbage cans while being battered by the cold glares of the suburban residents.
According to Justice, who has been recycling for the past three years, he is lucky if he gets paid R100 for one approximately 1,5 x 1,5 metres bag of recyclables.
Justice, 34, works from Monday to Wednesday to be able to support his wife and four children in Lesotho.
“I have to get up very early on these days because I have to get to the bins before the garbage trucks do. It can be very difficult but I have no other choice. Sometimes the people sort the garbage for us. But mostly we have to sort it ourselves and that takes a lot of time,” he said.
However, each and every resident has the potential to make life a little easier for these hard-working, under-appreciated recyclers. By sorting your plastic, paper and glass goods into separate bags and leaving them on the sidewalk, you can make life a whole lot easier for them.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can even freeze a few meals and leave them on the wheelie bin for those exhausted, hungry men and their families. It’s never too late to bring about change.
