The Frame: Kenya poor cling to dump site

DANDORA, Kenya - As dawn neared and the light grew, the scene at a municipal dump outside Nairobi, Kenya, was hard to imagine.

Otherworldly sunlight filtered through biogas steam and smoke from burning chemicals and plastic. The smell of rotting debris from 4 million people, piled up over four decades in this dump, overpowered the nose and carried with it substance and density that clung deep inside the throat. Thousands of scavenging, prehistoric-like storks cawed and spread their massive wings. Pigs, brawling dogs and a menagerie of lesser birds picked through the garbage side by side with hunched-over men and women. This hardly seemed like a place for humans to live and work and eat.

I came all this way to better understand Kenya's Dandora Municipal Dump Site, the only waste site in Nairobi, East Africa's most populous city. For the people who work here, the conditions are among the worst I've ever seen. The neglect and disregard for their lives should be unacceptable. Yet the mountains of garbage that sustain them are also endangering their lives and those of their children.

To search for recyclable material to sell, Rahab Ruguru rummages through the smoldering debris with a piece of rebar she uses as a makeshift rake. Ruguru and the other pickers - an estimated 6,000 people - scavenge the sprawling 30-acre dumpsite from 5 a.m. to sundown. They make about $2.50 a day. They exist on the lowest rung of the economy, an informal chain of middlemen and women, working in horrific conditions, doing the dirty work for recycling companies. They sort and place into large sacks material that cannot be eaten, but can be sold for recycling. Metal, rubber, milk bags, plastics, bones and electronics tend to be among the most sought-after material.

Read the story by Micah Albert

(14 images)

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Trash pickers often represent the lowest economic class and most marginalized population in society. It's no different in Dandora, Kenya. A man from the neighboring slum of Korogocho hefts his last bag of trash for the day in hopes of selling the mostly rubber scraps for 50 cents USD. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

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"Working here is how I am able to feed my children," says Rahab Ruguru. "Of course it is not a usual job. Dodging pigs, used condoms, eating what I find; no it's not good for me. But it is a job and I have to persevere." Asthma makes life even harder for Rahab Ruguru. Toxic-laced smoke from small fires of burning waste spreads to every corner of Dandora. As a mother, what bothers her most is the adult behavior that her children are forced to witness. Save her four-year-old, all of the Rujuru family scavenges Dandora with their mother on weekends and after their classes to earn money for school fees, books, and uniforms. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

Rahab Ruguru, 42, a mother of six children, between the ages of four and 17, moved to a small home directly bordering Dandora after the country's 2007 post-election violence forced her family from their Eldoret farm near the Western border of Kenya. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

"Tiger" is Dandora's gatekeeper. City trucks pay his cartel to enter the site. He grew-up eating the leftovers of Nairobi's airline passengers and has spent most of his life working at the site. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

Tiger directs an incoming city dump truck to an acceptable location for dumping. A lot of shouting comes from the pickers, asking Tiger to direct the truck to a spot that does not spill onto an area they have yet to sort through. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

Most eat what they can find. Others sort through the trash and place into large sacks whatever can be sold for recycling. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

Pausing in the rain, a woman tells me she wishes she had more time to look at books. She even likes the industrial parts catalogs. "It gives me something else to do in the day besides picking [trash]," she says. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

Trash pickers pay Tiger 10 KSH (12 cents USD) a game to use his pool table during breaks. And, in order for us to gain entry, we too, had to pay Tiger for his approval. He grew-up eating the leftovers of Nairobi's airline passengers and has spent most of his life working at the site. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

An informal chain of middle men and women has long done the dirty work for recycling companies. Sorting through metals, rubber, meat bones, milk bags, and plastics, hundreds of self-employed pickers scavenge the 30-acre dumpsite from 5am to sundown. Community buyers purchase their day's work at nearby weigh stations, eventually selling the newly acquired share to informal drivers who are paid upon delivery by the recycling companies. None of the workers make more than 250 KSH ($2.50 USD) per day. Here, buyers in the slum wait for pickers to deliver bags of plastic bottles. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

A man crosses the tar-black Nairobi River while carrying his day's worth of recyclable materials. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

Using a bent piece of rebar with a makeshift handle, pickers spend all day up to their knees, hunched over, unprotected in every possible way. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

On the edges of the dumpsite you will find those that prefer to work alone, looking instead for metal scraps. The metal usually reveals itself easier in areas that have caught fire from bio-gas. These workers endure the harshest breathing conditions with a potential larger payout for the product. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

The sun rises on the Dandora dump site, slum-dwellers and scavengers fight for space while storks gathering nearby. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

Predawn light on the Dandora dumpsite as a lone picker begins another day early. In the distance, the neighboring slum of Korogocho with its high power crime prevention lights help illuminate the otherworldly scene. Pulitzer Center / Micah Albert

The Frame

April 30, 2012

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