Bin rummaging: ‘We're just making a living’ - informal waste collectors

CapeTalk’s Good Morning Cape Town producer Bruce Hong recently spoke with Kelly and Nigel, two informal waste collectors who sift through bins in Bothasig, the suburb where Hong lives. The idea for the conversation came after residents on the neighbourhood watch WhatsApp group began discussing the pair’s activities.

In Bothasig, residents place their bins out for the City of Cape Town’s weekly refuse collection. The system separates general waste and recyclables, each collected on different days. However, when Kelly and Nigel were seen rummaging through them, residents wondered whether this practice contravened city bylaws.

According to the City of Cape Town’s Waste Management By-Laws, it is an offence for any unauthorised person to remove waste, including recyclables, that has been set out for official municipal collection.

Despite this, Kelly and Nigel continue their work, describing it s their only way to earn a living.

Kelly, a single mother from Monte Vista, wakes up at 3:00 am to travel from Valhalla Park to Bothasig three times a week. She explains that she collects from black bins, not the recycling ones, because there's often more recyclable items in those.

Kelly sells the materials at small scrapyards for R50 a day. “The big scrapyards won’t take it,” she notes.

Nigel, a father of a 13-year-old, has been doing this work for 18 years, four days a week, because it's the only thing he's been able to do to feed his child.

Both Kelly and Nigel face hostility from homeowners and law enforcement, though they say such encounters have become less frequent recently.

Kelly and Nigel say it's their only way to make an honest living.