Struggling to carry two large, heavy-duty plastic bags on his shoulders, Edgar Dlamini drags his feet into the Zondi Buy-Back Centre where he is going sell the plastic waste he has collected. Sweat runs down his face as he walks, panting, towards the scale where he will weigh the plastic bottles and broken buckets and containers.
”Do you know how long it took me to get here? I constantly had to take breaks because the material is heavy on me,” he says, wiping his sweaty face with his cap. Dlamini is a reclaimer. He and hundreds of other Sowetans make a living out of picking up people’s waste and selling it for a profit at the Zondi Buy-Back Centre, in the west of Soweto.
The centre collects an estimated 10 tonnes of plastic waste every month — about 500kg daily — from reclaimers from all over Soweto. The material mostly comprises plastic bottles.
”We call them reclaimers because they claim back what other people don’t want and make profit out of it. Some of these people actually go to people’s rubbish bins and take out what they need,” says Phillip Skosana, who works at the centre and deals directly with reclaimers each day.
”I know who our regular clients are because I weigh the material and compensate them for it, so I recognise a familiar face,” he says. Skosana has dealt with different reclaimers for more than three years and says that they all collect different materials for recycling.
A kilogram of plastic will earn a reclaimer 70c, while steel fetches a higher price at R1 for the same weight.
”There are those whose money feeds their families, the breadwinners at home, and then there are those who just want petty cash for themselves,” Skosana says.
After catching his breath, Dlamini tells his tale. ”I can maintain my family with the money that I make here,” says the 59-year-old father of three from Mofolo South, Soweto. ”This thing is the last resort as far as making money is concerned. But what else can I do?” he asks.
”It was my youngest child’s birthday yesterday. He turned six and I bought him cake with the money that I got here,” he says, adding that he made R70 that day.
Dlamini, a skinny, grey-haired, sickly looking man, says he no longer has the strength for the back-breaking work of reclaiming waste. ”I have a problem with my chest, which is why it is not easy for me to carry heavy loads,” he explains. Unlike other reclaimers, he does not have a donkey cart or even a trolley on which he can load his material and drag it to the centre.
‘Reclaiming is my life’
Sipho Dlamini, not related to Edgar, has been in the business of reclaiming for 16 years. He now works as a sorter at Zondi Buy-Back Centre and says he will never stop reclaiming. ”I used to take steel to the Molefe recycling centre in Dobsonville back in the Nineties and then I heard about this place, so I started collecting both plastic and steel,” he says.
Wearing a greasy blue overall, Sipho picks up a sack full of plastic goods and sorts the material into different categories. ”The Coke bottles all go on one side because they are one type of plastic and the bottle caps are another,” he says.
He adds: ”When I heard that the centre takes plastic, I made it my personal mission to collect plastic and bring it here every single day. The management of Zondi Buy-Back Centre saw that I was an eager beaver and asked me if I would like to work here as someone who sorts the different materials, because I had knowledge of the different kinds of material.”
Since the beginning of 2007, Sipho’s routine has switched from waking up in the morning and getting his trolley ready for the road to getting up and preparing to go to work. ”I used to get up at 5.30am, and by 6.30am my reclaiming day would begin,” he says, adding that he would decide on the area to go to depending on the previous day’s progress. ”If I did well the day before, I would go to parks and playgrounds in my neighbourhood and not have to stress too much about getting car seats and that sort of thing.”
Old car parts, such as seats and doors, mean good money.
”I have been doing this for so long that when I go to other townships people call me to tell me who has old metal parts to give,” he says.
Even though he spends his weekdays working at the centre, he dedicates his weekends to reclaiming steel. ”Reclaiming is my life. I don’t know of any other way to make money except for this one; besides, I enjoy it,” he says, adding that reclaiming steel is the most profitable of all.
Family man
Sipho Dlamini is a father of four. ”My wife does not work, so the children depend on me for everything and I want to give them everything I have,” he says.
On a good weekend he makes R180 from reclaiming steel. ”I become really excited when my trolley is full for the weekend because I know that I will make good money. I didn’t always have a big trolley but because I knew that I would be doing this for a very long time, I invested in one that would carry as many kilograms as possible. The more weight the goods carry, the more money I make.”
He fashioned his trolley out of a steel mattress base, four wheelbarrow wheels, a car seat and a steering wheel.
He says he got the base from a woman whose yard he was cleaning. ”Sometimes I clean people’s yards and then they pay me with steel material. I got the base when I was cleaning yards in Midway [near Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg].” He put the trolley together with the help of a welder friend.
Many reclaimers do not have any other income apart from the money they earn by picking up waste, but Skosana, of the buy-back centre, says that the reclaimers who have donkey and horse carriages also sell coal in winter. ”They bridge the gap of income between summer and winter because in winter they sell coal and make a lot of money from it, but in summer few people use coal, so that leaves them with less money to live on.”
Reclaimers who use donkey carriages have the edge on those who have to walk.
Reclaimer Jabulani Nyembe (49) says shyly: ”The furthest I walk when I recollect is about 5km. Never more than that.”
He sounds almost reluctant to share any stories about reclaiming, saying simply he wants to earn money to buy himself loose draws (cigarettes).
His unmanicured toes peep out of what was originally a pair of bright, white Adidas takkies. ”I don’t know what to say; I mean, the money we get here can never be enough,” he says, looking at his hands.
”I make about R25 a day here and it’s enough for my beer and my cigarettes,” he says. ”I never go to bed on an empty stomach. There are nine of us at home and three people work, but I can’t expect my sisters and my brother to cater for my habits. That’s why I go to the playground every day to get things that I can exchange for a few cents. I also do people’s gardens,” he says, adding that he has never had a formal job in his life.
”I think that it is partly my fault because I didn’t try hard enough to get a job, but I am proud to say that I have never done crime in my life. Do you understand why I am a reclaimer now? It is one of the very few honest ways to make a living,” Nyembe says, turning away and heading for the road.