Statistics show’s that South Africa waste management industry is worth billions of Rand.

Mr Motlalepula a forty-year-old man who is working as recycler, says it is a tough job to perform especially in the morning and when it is raining. I wake up at 3am every day to travel from Sharpeville to the suburbs of Three rivers in Vereeniging. 

He further retorts: “I have been doing this job since I lost my job few years ago. Now I am able to feed my family and pay for my children’s school fees. It is a tough job (he laughed) but I would love to see young people working and stop standing on the corners and complaining”. 

He concluded our conversation by making a plea to the department of environmental affairs to help them in offering them a space or a land so that they may stop working from their homes and also supplying them with reflectors, so that they can be visible on the road during dawn and dusk.

Report by: Cornelius D. Mofokeng.