Iwodia Shongwe has shared her inspiring story in the hope that Joburg residents will help make her and the lives of thousands more waste pickers, easier.
Johannesburg, South Africa (08 November 2022) – There are thousands of waste pickers in the city of Joburg who work hard to earn an honest living. Iwodia Shongwe is one of those people and she is sharing her story to show that there are people out there who are working hard to make ends meet. She hopes her story will inspire people to be kinder to waste pickers.
Every morning, Iwodia wakes up before the sun, she puts on her blue overall jacket and warm clothes before heading out to walk the Joburg streets to collect waste. She starts at around 5 am and will walk from suburb to suburb between Johannesburg and the East Rand until long after the sun sets.
Shongwe tries her best to get to the good neighbourhoods first, so she can pick from the best bins where recyclables are often separated and cleaned already. She collects paper, cardboard, glass, PET plastic, tins, and cans. If she can fill four large bags, she can earn R250 that week. Shongwe works from Sunday to Thursday each week, using Friday as her day to take in her recycling.
“I am a waste picker, but I am more than that. I am a mom, wife, sister, and friend who is trying to make an honest living. My family would suffer without my waste-picking job,”
“We collect from dusk till dawn and dare not start the day late because there are many of us doing this job and if we don’t start on time, we miss out on collecting enough recyclable material,”
“My biggest fear about waste picking is falling ill because missing a day of collecting will set me back for a month. I am in no position to miss a day of reclaiming. I need the money. We live from week to week and some weeks I don’t even collect enough to receive R250,”
Shongwe shares that she doesn’t earn enough to sustain her family but the money does prevent them from going hungry.
“I normally search through rubbish bins and bags that people put out on their curbside. Although there are many waste pickers, we are not all collecting the same material,” she notes.
Shongwe says the suburbs she waste picks from, often place the waste separate from the general rubbish, this makes it much easier and faster for her to collect the items she needs. She explains that this is a special case though and mostly people chase her and her fellow pickers away.
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She thanks the communities and households that go above and beyond to separate the waste and show her kindness. It is these days she feels most special. Now and then, families will leave something extra for her to find, which she gratefully takes back to her family.
It is this kindness that keeps her hope alive and she hopes her story, although detailing lots of hard work, will inspire people to do a little more to support waste pickers in South Africa.
“If you see a waste picker outside your house, please think of my story about what a day in our lives looks like. And if you have a minute to spare, separate the paper and the plastic. A little help goes an exceptionally long way,”
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