Kalakal: Recycling in Manila
Recycling is made by scavengers, street people and poor families who depend on garbage as a main source of income.
young boys come from far away villages trying to meet ends in the capital. Work is heavy and wages low. None is conscious of the impact of their activity.
High end costumers will not bring their garments to dry clean to any other place. This is the top end.
I witnessed a Toyota SUV driving into the junk shop. A mman dressed in sports expensive clothes brought his bottles for recycling. And accepted the 10 pesos charge (0.20$)
The weight of your left over material is the food of the junk shops
Junk is of all types. Everything sells except glass, rarely recycled in Manila.
Makeshift shacks pile recycling materials and sleeping space alike.
Sleeping place has to be reduced to allow the material to have its place
Green Manila depends on them
Bags are never light. A worker can carry hundreds of kilos every single day
Everything is washed and thorowghly classified
Manila produces daily mountains of recyclable trash. All of it ends in the junk shops.
Rich neighbours keep it behind walls ignoring what is the end of it. As far as it is far from their villas.
Offices in the digital era still produce walls of paper.
Junk makes houses for the evicted. Unable to make a proper house for lack of land they survive on scraps.
They work long shifts day and night. Already in their trucks everything is sorted out. their survival depends on it.
Every small bottle makes the difference. Thousands of street dwellers hope to get enough to go through the day or at least the next meal.
