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Skarreling for Scrap: a case study of informal waste recycling at the Coastal Park landfill in Cape Town
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Huegel, Christoph Peter |
| Copyright Year | 2011 |
| Abstract | A widespread phenomenon on dumpsites in the developing world, subsistence waste picking is also a common practice at the city-owned Coastal Park Landfill (CPL) in Muizenberg. Poor unemployed people from the townships of Capricorn, Vrygrond and Hillview, situated at the foot of the tip ―skarrel for scrap‖ every day. The word skarreling is an Afrikaans term meaning to rummage or scrabble, scuttle or scurry. Thus, if one talks of ―skarreling for scrap‖, it generally refers to poor people trying to eke out a living by looking for recyclables in the waste that can be put to personal use or turned into money. In the two decades since the transition to democracy, South Africa and the City of Cape Town (CCT) have formulated a number of framework and subordinate policies which express their commitment to sustainable development (SD). SD aims to achieve a balance between its three components, economic, environmental and social sustainability. Thus, SD is not only about increased economic efficiency and stability, while at the same time reducing pollution and handling natural resources more thoughtfully; it is also about promoting social equity by reducing poverty and empowering the poor. This study is guided by the assumption that waste pickers in developing countries play an important part in recycling efforts, and that recycling in turn is an integral component of SD, which is the guiding principle of South African policy-making. In an ideal scenario – as implicitly promised by the policies on SD – the management of solid waste should pursue the economic and environmental goals of SD by promoting recycling and should be aligned with the goal of creating sustainable livelihoods. However, the reality in the CCT is a different one. Landfill skarreling in the CCT, and particularly at CPL, is accompanied by conflict and a criminalisation of the skarrelaars. The CCT decided to phase out landfill salvaging in 2008, and subsequently has put a lot of effort into keeping skarrelaars away from its landfills. The implications of this decision – job losses for poor people and a potential increase in crime – have not been thought through. There is thus a dysfunctional triangular relationship around waste recycling in the CCT, leading to tensions between (1) the City‘s commitment to SD; (2) |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11394/3735/Huegel_MA_2013.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
