Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 6: Down at the dumpsThe main work force on the dump is in fact the 100 or so pickers on site. When Loatearrived at Palm Springs, the pickers were living in shacks around the site and theirchildren picked with them. The shacks are now gone. Loate says he organised newaccommodation in RDP houses for the people who lived there. He also institutedrules for waste picking. Nobody is allowed to climb onto the trucks. Children are notallowed on the dump and Loate says this is enforced by the pickers themselves. Theyalso prevent new settlement in the area.As recounted in Box 21, the pickers do not always follow the rules but Loate hasdemonstrated real sympathy with them and they appear to accept his authority withoutreservation. The changes that he has introduced have two purposes: to improve theirworking conditions and to regulate their activities. All the pickers are registered andgiven identity cards for display. They are organised into groups of women, youngwomen, men and young men, who are allowed to pick waste from incoming vehicles atset times to ensure equal access to materials. The allocation of space in the salvage yardis now being organised on the same basis. Municipal trucks are provided to transportcollected materials to buyers, resulting in major savings and improved incomes forthe pickers. Loate was also concerned to reduce the number of people on site. Hetherefore negotiated with local mall managers and organised a group of pickers fromPalm Springs to sort and recycle waste at the malls.Muscling in on the pickings at SasolburgAcross the Vaal River, the management of the Sasolburg dump is at once more remoteand less benign. This case study, researched by Melanie Samson and presented in full ina report for groundWork focusing specifically on reclaimers [Samson 2008a], recountsthe history of a struggle for control over the surplus of recycling from the dump. Itshows both the pickers’ initiative to organise themselves and how local elites, backedby Sasol itself, muscled in on the profits.The Sasolburg dump is hemmed in and dwarfed by Sasol’s industrial dumps – themountainous ash heap, the geometrically engineered effluent dam and a series of threetar pits which are soon to be relocated. The dump was started in 1951, at the sametime as Sasolburg itself. It is not permitted and has no lining. The Integrated WasteManagement Plan produced for the municipality says that it receives 51 tonnes of wastea day [Metsimaholo 2008: 51]. Metsimaholo waste manager Johann Labuschagneestimates that, with industrial waste included, the figure is closer to 90 tonnes ofWasting the Nation - groundWork - 167 -