Around The World
Senegal
Republic of Senegal, for those of you who don’t know, lies south of the Senegal River on the western coast of Africaand it has rubbish issues. Until recently, there were no large-scale recycling operations running in Senegal, because it cost too much.
In the major cities, like Dakar, rubbish would pile up on any waste ground where people wanted to develop.
However, local residents have taken it upon themselves to ensure that everything that can be recycled is recycled. Soup tins become cups, p lastics bags and tyres become shoes, newspapers and documents are used to wrap fruit and bread in the market place, fruit peel is even used to make perfume.
They don’t stop there, metals are recrafted into chairs and tables, plastic sacks are unpicked and rewoven into rope, paper, along with grass and hemp is an essential ingredient of mattresses. People specialise in a form of waste, be it glass, plastic, paper or whatever and turn it into products that wing their way back to the market.
Sheet metal is a popular material to creatively recycle. Workers create such things as mirrors, ashtrays, suitcases or toys, all made from bright cola, coffee and beer cans. The flamboyant Dogon dancers in the tourist market of Bamako, just over the Maliboarder, even wear them.
Large companies tend to only sell recycled plastic and glass products, but do it in bulk. Every year hundreds of tonnes of old plastic and glass goes in one end of the factory and comes out the other as bowls, tubs and other containers in a riot of colours that make the beautiful traditional Batik cotton goods seem as colourful as a display of lampost paint in comparison.
More recently, large firms have started working in Senegal. Companies such Enterprise Works are spreading affordable plastic-recycling technology to interested businesses. The Swiss waste disposal firm Alcyon treats rubbish in the capital Dakarand aims to get rid of a huge tip called Mbeubeuss and recycle a lot of the city's waste. As the waste reduces and jobs are created, the locals can move on from the unhygienic and sometimes hazardous work of rubbish collecting.
In this small African country, recycling works differently to Britain, but it is nevertheless working. We might even have picked up tips; you can buy pencil cases and notebooks made from tyres, or exotic recyclable materials in Cardiff today.
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