Garbage picker
The term garbage seekers (and occasionally garbage people ) is used to describe people, especially in the third world , who live on, in and with garbage that they collect , recycle or sell. This is to be distinguished from the fight against litter .
Income basis
Recyclable waste includes:
- Plastic (shopping bags)
- Sheet metal, metal → scrap collector
- Paper → paper recycling
- Bottle caps , pieces of metal
- empty bottles
They can sell these at prices per kilo. A large part of their daily food consists of leftovers found in the trash. Their living conditions are accordingly bad. The organic waste, which makes up around 60% of total waste, is used to feed your animals on the one hand, and consumed on the other. They usually only use a shed made of cardboard and sheet metal as a shelter .
The problem that people have to live on landfills does not affect individual countries but applies to all continents. The garbage people come mainly from rural areas, who have the hope of a better life in the big cities , but there it is hardly possible for them to gain a foothold.
Diseases
The lack of hygiene , the drinking water problem , the mosquitoes and of course many dangerous objects that are in the garbage are the prerequisites for illnesses and injuries:
- Respiratory problems due to vapors and gases generated during waste incineration
- Sub , malnutrition and malnutrition
- diabetes
- Dengue fever
- Fungal diseases
- TBC (tuberculosis)
- Blood poisoning and abscesses caused by open wounds.
- HIV / AIDS (mostly through prostitution )
Latin America
As Pepenadores , Recicladores or Cartoneros in to Latin America , the (literally) waste picker referred.
These people from the lower social classes, themselves worse off than workers and casual workers , have made it their business to look for resalable leftovers in the landfills of the metropolises. Only in this way are they able to minimally secure their existence.
On the urban central landfill of Mexico City alone there are said to be 2500 of these pepenadores, that is roughly one per ton of waste that is generated here every day.
Nicaragua
In Nicaragua - more precisely: near the capital Managua - is La Chureca, the largest garbage dump in Central America.
It covers around 420 hectares and is the work area of more than 1700 people, of whom at least 80% are minors . About 280 families with an average of six family members live on the La Chureca site. Hundreds more arrive daily to get there their livelihood to earn.
Oil and gas are sometimes shut down all day by utility companies due to technical problems and corruption. Sufficient hygiene does not exist when living on a landfill. Due to the bad diet with moldy food, the risk of cancer is very high. Residues of lead and mercury in the blood are another effect of bad eating. Many people also feed on fish caught in Lake Managua , which is harmful to health due to the high levels of water pollution.
In the summer months (from December to April), huge amounts of garbage are burned in the open air. You use the rain-free time here to get rid of the garbage in this way. However, this in turn results in great air pollution .
The City of Managua is not responsible for La Chureca. This administrative district has more than 1.3 million inhabitants, which creates a correspondingly large amount of waste (around 82 tons per day). To remove this, hundreds of garbage trucks drive to the La Chureca site from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day to deliver the garbage there. Many also come with pick-ups or trucks and dump their rubbish privately. There is no official recycling in Managua.
On March 3, 2008, the residents of La Chureca started a strike. They wanted to defend themselves against the behavior of the truck drivers, which had made their situation even worse. At that point in time there was no set order stating exactly where the garbage trucks should unload the garbage. In some cases, large quantities were dumped directly in front of the huts of the people living there and garbage was thrown from moving trucks, which sometimes involved hard objects.
The trucks drove at high speeds, which seems particularly dangerous given the large number of children living there. The garbage collectors working for the city administration claimed for themselves all materials that could be resold, such as copper, zinc, aluminum and paper. Plastic bottles can currently be sold at the price of four cordobas per kilo , around 30 bottles for the equivalent of € 0.14, which is not much in Nicaragua (for comparison: beans, the main food of the Nicaraguans, currently cost 17 cordobas a pound).
In protest, the garbage people from La Chureca blocked all entrances to the area on March 3, 2008, so that no trucks could enter the area. This created total chaos in the whole city. The direct consequences were heavy pollution of the streets that lead directly to the garbage dump. Many truck loads were illegally dumped in front of the official entrances to the landfill or were taken to other areas.
On March 7th, an agreement was signed that stipulates that the garbage collectors who work for the city are no longer allowed to claim the garbage for themselves. This can now only be used by the workers of the Chureca. However, this contract has not yet been recognized by the majority of the churcequeros (the people who live in La Chureca). They argue that the people who negotiated this contract are not from their community. They keep trying to prevent the rubbish deposit.
Egypt
There are eight garbage settlements in Cairo , where around 50,000 garbage people, Zabbalin ( Arabic زبالين, DMG Zabbālīn ) can be found. Izbat an-Nakhl is the garbage settlement in the south of Cairo, the capital of Egypt , where around 8,000 garbage people live. A similar garbage settlement in the east of Cairo is in Manschiyyet Nasser .
The garbage people are mostly Coptic Christians. Since Egypt is dominated by Islam, they have to face many disadvantages. In 2003 a central garbage disposal was set up to deprive the garbage people of their livelihood.
The livelihood of the Zabbalin consists of garbage fees and the profit from the resale of the picked garbage. Garbage people go from house to house with their donkey carts and collect the garbage there. It is important that you get there before the municipal garbage collection arrives, as garbage collection is illegal in Egypt. Before the establishment of the municipal garbage disposal, the Zabbalin received a small tip from the residents. The rotting garbage is sorted out after collecting in plastic, paper, glass, cans and leftover food. Plastic, paper and glass are picked up by a dealer and taken to recycling points. The sheet metal of old cans is very popular. It is cut open by the people in the garbage settlements and then sold to traders. The garbage is compressed into 100 kg packages at collection points and then taken to recycling points on the edge of the neighborhood.
The Zabbalin do not eat meat because it is too expensive. Bread, milk, cheese and vegetables are on the table. The garbage has to be sorted and loaded by evening, because the Zabbalin need this space to sleep and live. The life expectancy of the Zabbalin is around 50 years. The reason for this is the high risk of injury and infection.
Philippines
The 15,000 garbage collectors who live in the Philippines are mainly from 3 areas of Manila , Quezon City and Cebu City . In Manila, people live on the two garbage dumps Smokey Mountain and Payatas. These are huge mountains of rubbish (up to 40 meters high), with Smokey Mountain even being an internationally known landmark of the port city of Manila. In the region around Cebu City, the garbage collectors are also called "Scavengers" (English for garbage collectors or scavengers). The sale of rubbish takes place in so-called “junk shops” and brings the “scavengers” on average between 50 and 65 pesos (around € 0.75–1) a day.
Hundreds have already died when one of the large mountains of rubbish collapsed, mostly as a result of a persistent monsoon rain, and buried many people under itself. Again and again, the garbage collectors are promised state help, clean accommodation, real work or the like, but these promises are hardly or not at all kept by those responsible. Meanwhile there is more and more help from abroad such as doctors, religious and associations who want to help the "scavengers" out of their misery.
Germany
The phenomenon of bottle collectors occurs particularly in the metropolitan areas of large cities ; Similar phenomena exist in other countries with a deposit system on beverage packaging. These people collect deposit bottles that have been left lying around or illegally thrown away, or incorrect throws placed next to deposit machines, or look for them in (mainly public) rubbish bins or also waste glass containers and return them to the deposit system.
Relief efforts
Education should help people out of misery. With support from Germany, a school is being built on the disused part of the garbage dump in Smokey Mountain, Tondo, Manila. This school is being built with recycled material. After its completion in 2010, the digital learning center will offer 1,000 school dropouts the opportunity to graduate.
Most of the children cannot go to school and only a few graduate because schooling in the Philippines is not free.
The German Oenophilogen Gesellschaft Gemeindienst eV , a non-profit wine association from Oberhausen, is building this school with a total cost of 109,000 euros. In 2010, 400 and later 800 children were to be taught here.
Non-governmental organizations in Germany
German Oenophilogen Society Community Service eV
The association Deutsche Oenophilogen Gesellschaft Gemeindienst eV has been supporting training projects in Tondo, Manila (Smokey Mountain) since 1999. In 2009 the association established a non-profit, independent foundation to support the projects.
"The garbage children of Cairo"
The Neuwied association “The Garbage Children of Cairo” was founded in 2001 and supports a Coptic religious order in Egypt, which has its center in the garbage area of Ezbeth el Nakl. The religious order runs educational institutions for Muslim and Christian children and young people.
Africa Circle of Friends
The Africa Circle of Friends was created on the initiative of geography students at the University of Bayreuth . It was founded on July 2, 1992 and now has 160 employees worldwide. They are currently supporting projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan.
Yalla eV
Yalla eV directs “ Help for Self-Help ” in Arab countries. The association arose from the encounter between students and the nun Maria Theresia Grabis in Cairo in 1992. The main concern of the association is to make an active contribution to international understanding between Europe and the Arab countries. The association supports self-help projects with donations and work on site.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Los Niños del Basurero Managua Nicaragua , Parts 1-4 , YouTube (accessed April 23, 2008)
- ^ Nicaragua: Dump Workers Strike , Indymedia (March 9, 2008)
- ↑ Thorsten Gerald Schneiders: "The zabbālīn in 'Izbat an-Nakhl, Egypt. Modern everyday life on the edge of society", in: Thomas Bauer u. a. (Ed.): Everyday life and material culture in the Arabic language and literature. Festschrift for Heinz Grotzfeld, Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 309–326.
- ↑ Cairo trip May 2005: The Salam Center is for the garbage people ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , www.muellkinder-von-kairo.de
- ↑ Moytamadea - the garbage district of the Zabalins ( Memento of the original from May 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , www.yallaev.de
- ↑ As a doctor on Cebu ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Visit, magazine St. Vincenz Hospital Paderborn / St. Josefs Hospital Salzkotten (4-2006)
- ↑ Philipp Catterfeld / Alban Knecht (Ed.): Flaschensammeln . Survival in the city , Konstanz, Munich 2015
- ↑ German society Oenophilogen Community Service eV Accessed on 18 June 2019 .
- ↑ In-Vino-Caritas Foundation. Retrieved June 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Welcome. Retrieved June 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Afrika-Freundeskreis eV | Helping people help themselves. Retrieved June 18, 2019 (German).
- ^ Yalla eV | International cultural association. Retrieved June 18, 2019 (German).
