THE ECONOMICS OF WASTE SCAVENGING IN KANO STATE

Mustapha Muktar, Ph.D

Department of Economics

Bayero University, Kano-Nigeria

Introduction

Throughout the cities of Africa, Asia and Latin America, varying number of poor individuals survive by salvaging materials from the waste stream. These people recover the materials to sell for the reuse or recycling as well as diverse items for their own consumption. Those individuals are generally known as ‘scavengers’ or rag pickers and the activity they undertake is called ‘scavenging’

(Medina 1997). Scavenging is a labour process involved in the initial collection, purchase, and processing of recoverable material (Loan 2002). Scavengers are not refuse workers and they are not concerned with waste management, they enter into trade for economic reasons, and their relationship with waste is as a resource, they only collect those materials for which there is market.  Scavenging is a reality in almost all cities of developing countries and in many wealthier nations as well.  The respective governments have not recognized the economic impact of this activity; on the other hand the academics do not write much scientific analysis on the subject.

In Nigeria, like in other developing countries, Scavenging begins with the collection of plastic bags, bottles, papers, cardboards and cans, and mostly it takes place in the informal sector. Scavengers provide informal collection, recovering additional materials at the curve and at dumps and landfills.

In Kano state the realization of very large dumps of waste tend to attract scavengers locally called “Baban Bola” These scavengers play an important role in the process of waste recycling. They sort out the useful materials like paper, aluminum, glass etc and sell them to the recycling industries.

 Unemployed engaged in activities that earn income for their survival and that of their families. The existence of many industries that utilize solid waste as their input is also an important factor that shall encourage scavenging in Kano state. One of the factors responsible for waste scavenging in Kano state is the uncompromising stance of the economy and government economic policies for youth; as a result it has become a common scene in Kano state to see youth carrying sacks and sticks while they roam garbage dumps.

 The preoccupation of Kano state government on environmental policy is in the area of environmental sanitation, degradation and pollution control. Hence, one can see that there is no linkage between government formulated policies on environment and the activities of waste scavengers in the state. Government has failed to recognize and formalize scavenging activity in Kano state despite its importance in terms of job creation and income generation to some of the citizens.

The paper therefore, is aimed at finding out the impact of waste scavenging on employment and income generation in Kano state. The scope of the paper is however, narrowed to Kano metropolitan area alone, and Kano metropolitan area consists of six local governments, that is Gwale, Tarauni, Nassarawa, Fagge, Dala, and Kano municipal local Government areas. The paper covered a period (1996 - 2004). The choice of this period is due to the fact that it was after the introduction of structural adjustment programme SAP that scavenging emerged in large scale. One of the limitations of the paper is lack of official records and figures on waste scavenging by relevant authorities like the Kano state, Refuse Management and Sanitation Board (REMASB).

The paper is therefore, organized into four parts, after the introduction  part two reviewed literature and theoretical issues, part three contain the results and discussion, and the last part contain concluding remarks.

Methodology

The methodology that is employed is the use of both primary and secondary source of data. The primary data is gathered through oral interview with scavengers. A survey was conducted among scavengers in order to find out the hours they spent and income earned from their activities. Some dump sites were visited so that information was gathered too. Sixty scavengers were interviewed in three types of areas that is residential areas, commercial areas and at dumpsites. Additionally, group discussions were held to enable respondents to talk more freely about their activities and the social conditions. The out come of the interview is analyzed in section three.  Secondary data was collected through the review of textbooks, journals, published seminar papers, reports of commission the internet and other published materials.

The use of descriptive statistics such as, frequency distribution tables, percentages, ratios and averages on one hand and inferential statistics such as correlation analysis are employed in the course of analyzing the collected data. The adoption of this technique is to find out the average income generated by scavenging as well as the average number of people that are engaged in waste employed by the profession.

 Quota sampling is employed in the distribution of respondents from the six local government areas. And ten people were interviewed from each local government. In the local government simple random sampling is used to select the ten people interviewed. These sampling techniques were adopted so that the respondents will have the same chance of being selected.

 Literature Review and Theoretical Issues

Scavenging

The picture of scavenging that emerges from reviewing literature is that of an occupation that provides a livelihood for the poor. Scavenging is an important survival strategy in which impoverished individuals coped with scarcity.  Scavengers typically specialize in recovering only one or a few types of materials from waste. To Medina (1997) Scavenging takes place in all stages along the waste management system that is; source separation at household or place generating waste material; here materials are reused, sold or given away examples old newspapers are used for packing. During collection, scavengers sort out recyclables for sale. Scavengers also retrieve recyclables at dumps, on the streets or public places, in canals and rivers, at landfills prior to burial and purchased source separated recyclables from residents. Scavenging is ubiquitous occurrence throughout the developing world. The World Bank has estimated that up to 2% of the population in third world countries survives by recovering materials from waste. Scavengers salvage materials to sell for recycling, as well as repairable and re-usable items that can sell or use themselves. The recovery of materials from waste by scavengers in developing countries takes place in a wide variety of settings; although the circumstances in which materials are recovered in a particular place may be unique.  From the above one can say that scavengers source their materials from two major ways that is either sorting or collecting freely from dumps and landfills, or by buying the already sorted materials from households.

The poverty prevalent in most developing countries forces the poor to make the most of the resource available to them. Given their very low incomes, scavenging provides them with reusable and salable materials. In doing so, the poor have developed creative ways in order to satisfy their needs, including the recovery of items not necessarily part of the waste stream:

 In Mali many farmers search and dig artifacts produced by ancient Mali empire in order to sell them to art collectors (Brentt, 1994; French, 1995). In Calcutta scavengers work along the rail road tracks in order to recover the pieces of coal that fall from the train (Lapierre, 1985). In Cairo scavengers search ox dung for undigested kernels of corn to eat (Linden, 1993). In Vietnam scavengers dig on agricultural fields and jungles, searching for scrap metal left over from the war (Donohue, 1994).

 Features of scavenging

The following features can be generalized for scavengers;

That is, scavengers are poor relative to the rest of the society, their incomes are low, scavenging is an informal activity and labour intensive in nature, scavenging can render economic and social benefits (such as; work for the unemployed individuals, supply raw materials for industry, and etc), scavenging generate cost to society such as high health risk associated with the type of labour, scavenging supplies raw materials largely to either artisans or industry, in dumpsites located near agricultural areas, scavengers recover organic materials to be used as fertilizers as well as food for goats and pigs (Medina, 1997)

Economic impacts of scavenging

 Scavenging contributes to reduce the amount of solid waste to be disposed and also helps to save the natural resources that leads to sustainable development. It creates jobs and extra income for people especially the poor. Scavenging encourage family members to sort out materials from wastes in exchange for money. Besides it supply raw materials for a lot of recycling enterprises and this creates more jobs for people as well as useful products for the society.

 Scavenging renders economic and environmental benefits, such as providing income to unemployed individuals, supply inexpensive raw materials to industries, reduce the demand for collection, transport and disposal equipment and facilities. Further material recycling has a lower environmental impact that is accelerated by scavengers.

Empirical literature

Various studies have highlighted the economic significance of scavenging activities. In Bangkok, Jakarta, Kanpur, Karachi, and Manila scavenging saves each city at least U.S $23 million a year in lower imports of raw materials and reduced need for collection, transport and disposal equipment, personnel and facilities. According to some estimates Indonesian scavengers reduce the amount of wastes that need final disposal by one third, which have significant economic and environmental benefits (Medina 1997).

Diaz (2000) argued that Scavenging is a process that is well practiced in developing countries, in fact scavenging is a source of employment, that attempt made to abolish the practice in some cities have been met with strong resistance. Scavengers roam the streets looking for items that can be reused, other scavengers conduct their activities at disposal sites. Generally scavengers have an agreement with a middle man, and the middleman is an individual who has contract with end users, who can process, prepare and sell the quantities of materials desired by users and he provides the scavengers with compensation and in some cases a collection vehicle (e.g. a cart). The families and social background of scavengers are such that scavenging is the only option available to them to earn a living. In most developing countries scavenging played important role on the economic survival of a number of industries (e.g. steel, pulp and paper)  

Loan (2002) studied the social impacts of solid waste recovery and recycling in Hanoi, Vietnam. The recovery system according to his findings consisted of collectors, buyers and traders. collectors gather materials from three groups of sources; dumping grounds, (dumpsite scavengers, in the public places, (itinerant scavengers) and in-house places (itinerant junk buyers). The materials from scavengers and junk buyers are bought by group of depot operators at dumping grounds and within the city. About 6000 people are working in the scavenging field. They came mainly from the rural areas, the largest group within the labour force are those under 20 years old (25%), adult male (31%), and adult female (44%).the system create jobs and extra income as it mobilizes all family members to work. On the other hand the negative side of the recovery system is that it encourage illegal immigration of rural people into the city to live in a bad condition and hence vulnerable to diseases and epidemics.  

 Adeyemi,  Olorunfemi and  Adewoye(2001) examined the role of waste scavengers in the waste recycling process in Ilorin, Nigeria. Using plastic waste as an example, it is demonstrated that such recycling is economically viable The preliminary findings reported indicates that, scavengers have contributed significantly towards the provision and separation of recyclables for the recycling industries, moreover, they are doing their activities in an informal setting. Scavenging is a source of employment to poor people. They finally recommended that, the waste scavenger could be incorporated formally into the recycling process.

Ado (1998) studied the economic importance of solid wastes in Kano metropolis his findings showed  that on the average  scavengers that buy recyclables from households generate an income that is equivalent to 50% of the cost of purchase (e.g. for each recyclable they bought at N1.00, they would get 50k as profit). He went a head to conclude that scavenging provided employment to youth that are hitherto not employed, besides these scavengers have been responsible for the separation of waste materials and in some cases upgrading it through washing for the recycling industries.

In an effort to study the recycling efforts of industries in Kano Adisa (2000) studied 60 respondents and find out that; the scavengers in Kano state are not organized in any formal way, yet their contribution to economic growth is significant. The scavengers are of two type namely; the primary and secondary scavengers. The secondary scavenger gave the primary scavenger a token amount of money to buy recyclables from the neighboring areas and in return, the materials are weighed and priced accordingly. A kilogram of rubber shoes or plastic on the average costs N22 – N30, and the companies that recycle these materials includes Balley plastic, and Standard plastic. On the average a secondary scavenger employ 6 primary scavengers or more, by doing this, a lot of youth are employed by the profession. On the problem that is facing scavengers he found out that; scavengers do not receive any assistance from the government, and the worst of all is that government levy heavy taxes on the secondary scavengers who are mostly salvage dealers.

 

Urbanization

Urbanization refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire population lives in cities and the suburbs of cities. Historically it has been closely connected with industrialization. When more and more inanimate sources of energy were used to enhance human productivity, surpluses increased in both agriculture and industry. Larger and larger proportions of population could live in cities. Economic forces were such that cities became the ideal places to locate factories and their workers (Grand & Robinson, 1980)

A city refers to a place of relatively dense settlement, dense enough so that city residents can not grow their own food. Not until agriculture developed could hinterlands provide food for their own population and enough surpluses to feed a city population. Over the years, economic growth of a country, a region or a population, has relied on the development of cities. In fact, cities have two functions: a production function and a cultural one (Fabry 1999).

Lovelock and Margulis (1976) in Botkin & Keller (1998) posits that non human life affects the environment of our planet and has changed it over the course of several billion years. In the course of explaining the theory of urbanization they coined what is referred to as the Gaia Hypothesis. The hypothesis proposed that earth and all living things form a single system, with interdependent parts, communication among these parts and the ability to self regulate, the environment has been profoundly changed by life over the history of life on earth and that these changes have tended to improve the environment for life. Human actions have begun to change the environment at global level.

Partly a result of the rapid growth of human population, and changes in technology, we are becoming an urban species, and our effects on environment are more and more the effects of urban life. With economic development comes urbanization. People move from farms to cities and then perhaps to suburbs. Cities and towns increase in size. Urbanization therefore, is characterized by the following;

Increasing population

Environmental pollution and Degradation

Prevalence of unemployment and poverty 

High rate of crime and other social problems.

In most urban areas the population is so high that such that it exceeds the productive capacity of the cities, unemployment is thus inevitable, and that leads to poverty since most of the unemployed appear to be dependents with little or no income. The prevalence of poverty leads to environmental degradation in form of indiscriminate dumping of waste materials, poor drainage system, air pollution and even deforestation. Goodall (1972) observed a cyclical relationship between urbanization, unemployment, poverty and environmental degradation. He argued that the poor degrades the environment more than the rich and as a result of urbanization immigrants and poor people have over utilized the natural resources and sometimes even resort to such activities that do not require any skill or capital like informal waste recovery(scavenging) so as to supplement their incomes and earn a living.

 As Medina (1997) observed that, as long as poverty and garbage exist in combination, waste scavenging and recycling are likely to prevail and the reality of these system can be seen as basis for development.

Scavenging and Surplus Value

Birkbeck (1979) analyzed the labour relations of scavengers of Columbia using the Marxist perspective. He described the situation in terms of self employed informal sector workers, who like factory laborers, engaged in piece work of which the surplus benefited the middlemen. The relationship between scavengers, the middlemen (salvage dealers) and factories can however, be characterized as Patron – client relationship based on mutual trust and cemented by rather stable product delivery and money lending patterns. These relations reduce the vulnerability of the scavengers by Guaranteeing a certain security of living, albeit at a low standard, as the middleman use this dependence to fix prices of the recovered materials at very low level. Because of this basic survival strategy, the scavenging system was describe by Singular (1992) as hunting and gathering societies, who survive under conditions of common source exploitation. They gather ‘ores’ and hunt for ‘valuables’ in the same way as hunters and gatherers use forests and planes. The exploitation of scavengers by middlemen occurs through market relations and not by means of employment relations as in a capitalist industrial setting. The informal production relations of scavengers are intertwined with the formal sector since they paid various types of taxes to government.

Waste scavenging in Kano state represents an adaptive response to chronic poverty, however the benchmark appeared to be the structural adjustment programme (SAP), when barn was impose for the importation of some industrial inputs with the objective of making the economy to be diversified and self reliant. Waste scavenging in Kano state has contributed to the development of the informal sector by providing a labour-intensive, low technology and low paid activity. scavenging have also rendered economic and environmental benefits such as work for unemployed individuals, supply of cheap raw materials to industries, reduces the demand and cost for waste collection, transport and disposal equipment facilities.

Urbanization is applicable to this research work since Kano state is an urban area characterized by high population, unemployment, poverty, environmental degradation and the prevalence of industrial enclaves. A lot of people are coming into the city of Kano in search for jobs and that makes it more and more urban. Waste scavenging evolves due to the prevalence of dump sites and some industries that utilized recyclables as part of their input requirements. The exploitative relationship between scavengers and middle men is a true reflection of the case here in Kano sate.

 Results and Discussion

As have been mentioned in the methodology a total of sixty scavengers were interviewed, this section will present and analyze the responses.

Scavengers’ profile

The profile of scavengers interviewed is represented in Fig 3.1

Out of the total number of 60 scavengers interviewed 54 are males while only 6 are females. Since respondents are selected at random, it can be deduced that scavenging in Kano state is not equally divided between mal and female, this account for bias in favor of males. The bias may perhaps be due to the culture and religion that is prevailing in the study area which restrict females especially married women from coming out to scavenge for useful materials. The above figure also showed that 75% of the respondents are 30 years old or younger. Of this young workforce 30% of the sample was children of 15 years or less. The drop-out rate from the workforce particularly is pronounced at the age of 45. An explanation for this phenomenon may be that, scavenging is a profession that requires young and energetic people who can work the length and breadth of the city to search for useful materials. No female scavenger was recorded from the age of 15 years or less.

The illiteracy rate among the respondents was 70%. Only 18 scavengers had some knowledge of formal education and they are all primary school drop outs between classes 2 – 5.therefore, we can conclude that scavenging in Kano state is practiced mainly by those with no formal education. Another important finding is the dominance of immigrants from villages in to the profession. All the 60 scavengers interviewed are however, Muslims and this may be due to the location of the study area.

Reason for waste scavenging

The various reasons that attracted the people into scavenging are represented by Fig. 3.2 below

Fig. 3.2

From the chart above, we can see 38% of the sampled scavengers are into the profession due to income and employment it provides to them, 27% joined scavenging due to poverty, while 20% are due to their low social status which includes lack of shelter, education orientation and parental care. The last category practiced scavenging due to personal interest, by chance and some of them say they don’t know the reason. 65% are into scavenging because of economic reasons (poverty, income and employment). Majority of the waste pickers lived with their families and contributed to household income. It was observed that young children usually accompanied their mothers from an early age.

 Types and composition and of materials recovered

Table 3.2 Composition of domestic waste in Kano metropolitan area

Materials	% Composition.
Plastic/Rubber	32.3
Metals/Iron	26.7
Glass Bottles	15.10
Others	25.9

 Source: PAI Associates (2003)

From the above table it can be seen that the major type of materials recovered by scavengers are plastics, metals, glass bottles and other. The materials categorized under others were identified to be old car batteries, used grain bags, papers, rags, wood, and so on. The source were the scavengers got these materials are mainly two; namely open dumps that are considered to be no man’s land and households. In case of materials from the households a token amount is being given in exchange for a recyclable material, sometimes new plastic plate, matches box, are given to the household members in exchange (Adisa, 2000).

Average hours worked

Working hour in any profession is very crucial in determining the extent to which a particular economic activity contributed towards employment provision.

Table 3.4 hours worked by scavengers.

Hours worked	Frequency	percentage
Less than 3hrs	12	20
4 – 6 hrs.	16	27
6 – 12 hrs.	32	53
Total	60	100

Source:

 Field Survey, 2005

From the table above we can see that 20% of the sampled scavengers worked for 3 hours or less, 27% worked for 4 – 6 hours, while 53% worked for 6 – 12 hours. It can be concluded therefore, that more than half of the scavengers worked for the whole day. It was observed that on the average scavengers worked between the hours of 8am to 6pm that is 10 hours in a day.

 Average price of materials collected by scavengers

Type of Materials	Price in Naira.
Plastic	30 per kg
Metal/iron	55 per kg
Used 5litre plastic gallon	10 per 1
Old car battery	50 per 1
Sot drinks bottles	5 per 1

Extracted From Ahmed 2005

The table above presents the prices of various type of recovered materials by scavengers state, these prices are however, offered by the salvage dealers who later take the products to the recycling enterprises. These salvage dealers are located at specific depots in Kofar Wambai, Sharada, Jakara, Dakata and Tudun Murtala areas all in Kano metropolis. Metals/Iron and Old car battery have a higher value and hence a higher earning potential. Soft drinks bottles though are very heavy have a lowest price. Plastic and used plastic gallon however, have moderate price. The average quantity of waste materials collected by a scavenger in a day was estimated to be 15kg. The average daily income of a scavenger was estimated to be N400; it was also observed that male scavengers earn more than their female counterparts. Finally it was discovered that in some cases scavengers recovered materials and used it for their personal use, these materials include fire wood and clothes. It should be noted that the items that are recovered and used for personal consumption by scavengers are not included in the estimation of scavengers total earnings.

A correlation analysis was conducted in order to find out the factors tthat determines the income of scavengers. Hour of work and earnings were tested, and the coefficient of correlation showed that the two variables are uncorrelated at all. Age of scavengers and earnings were tested too, and it was found out that the correlation was very negligible. A strong relationship was however, observed between area of operation and earnings of scavengers. In higher income areas like the government reserve areas (GRA) scavengers found more useful materials in dumps, this is due to the fact that households located in higher income areas do not care to collect useful materials from their waste before discharge, by and large their consumption pattern and nature of the products consumed is another contributing factor. These findings suggest that scavenging is an unorganized activity that requires little or no skill.

Estimated income Generated by scavengers in Kano state

Estimating the total in come generated by scavengers is constrained by the lack of official figures on the total number of scavengers in the state. Attempt to find the total number of scavengers in the state was made by Abubakar (2005) where he estimated that about two thousand or more people are being employed by scavenging. Now assuming the earlier estimated 15kg. of materials collected by one scavenger in a day, and using the estimated average income of N400 earned by a scavenger in a day we can now estimate the monthly income of a scavenger to be equal to N12000. The monthly income is however above the minimum wage paid by the state civil service. This finding is consistent with that of Medina (2003) where he found out that in Cairo scavengers earn three times the minimum wage, and in Mexican city of Nuero Laredo scavengers earn five times the minimum wage.

Using the figure 2000 for the total scavengers in Kano state then, scavengers will generate an annual income of 22million Naira.

Problems faced by scavengers.

One economic problem facing scavengers in the state is the issue of multiple taxes levied to them by both the local governments and the state Ministry of Environment. It was discovered government officials harass scavengers and claimed that they are responsible for littering areas. Taxes are levied directly on the salvage dealers. A salvage dealer was quoted to have said “imagine that they (Ministry of environment) are accusing us of littering the place with junks, where as we are the ones who are assisting them in reducing the massive mountains of refuse in the sate (Abubakar, 2005). Due the low bargaining power and the unorganized nature of scavenging, part or the entire tax burden is passed to the scavengers. This finding is consistent with that of Adisa (2000) and Muktar (2001).  The surplus value analysis as applied by Birbeck (1979) and Singular (1992) have explained this phenomenon.

The health of scavengers is however, vulnerable to disease, as garbage dumps contain sharp objects like home use syringes, razor blade, broken bottles and pieces of metals which could easily harm anyone that is not careful and can result into contacting HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tetanus or even result to death.

 When scavengers were asked whether they need any government assistance, all those interviewed said government should help to provide necessary working materials such as Hand gloves, masks, rubber boots, wheel barrows and small Capital so that their vulnerability to diseases can be reduced and the collection made efficient.

 Conclusion and Recommendations

Conclusion

Waste scavenging in Kano state arises mainly due to the existence of waste dumps and recycling enterprises on one hand, and the income earned as well as poverty on the other hand. Scavenging as an informal activity has employed over 2000 people in Kano state. The average monthly income earned by a scavenger is found to be above the minimum wage paid by Kano sate government. The number of children below the age of 15 working as scavengers can be seen as child labour, though poverty is what necessitates them to be engaged. Scavengers have face problems of multiple taxes and vulnerability to disease, hence they need government assistance.

 Recommendations

The followings are recommended;

One major problem facing scavengers is the informality of their profession and lack of bargaining power. It is recommended that scavengers should form cooperatives so that they can pool their efforts and resources together and bargain collectively, Government and non governmental organizations should therefore; enlighten them through seminars, and campaigns. Scavenger cooperatives have been practiced in Latin American countries and have succeeded.

Kano state government should mediate on the taxes charged by local governments and the state Ministry of environment so that scavengers can be made to pay a single and realistic tax. Attached to this point is the need for the state government to encourage scavenging and make the profession less vulnerable and more efficient, this can take the form of provision of necessary working equipments like hand globes, boots, wheel barrows and  capital.