​​​Iwodia Shongwe gets up at the crack of dawn every day and works as a waste picker until well after sunset to provide for her family. Shongwe begins her day around 5am – dressed in a blue overall jacket, a denim skirt with sneakers and maroon pants peeking out underneath for warmth – to roam the streets from suburb to suburb to ensure she gets to all the good bins first.

“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,” she asserts.

Shongwe is one of thousands of waste pickers or waste reclaimers in Johannesburg. She collects various types of waste, from paper, cardboard, and glass to plastic, tins, and cans.

She collects waste materials weekly, from Sundays through to Thursdays, and weighs them on Fridays to restart the collecting process the ensuing week. She adds that she collects close to home and very far from home on some days.

“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,” she avers.

Each week, Shongwe has to fill four white bags with waste, which normally amounts to R250. “It is not nearly enough to sustain my family, but without it, we would be hungry and lost,” she says.

Waste picking has in recent years become a well-known form of informal employment in Johannesburg. As a waste picker, one isn’t paid a set salary; rather, you are remunerated based on the amount weighed. This makes waste pickers’ jobs even more difficult because their collections are never the same.

Shongwe lives in between Johannesburg and the East Rand and has positioned herself there to do waste picking in both areas.

“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.

She says she collects all types of material to better her chances of making more money on weigh-in days. Shongwe says some of the suburbs she services have grown accustomed to her presence and usually separate their waste at the source to make it easier for her to collect.

“I am not always this lucky because in other suburbs we are chased away and seen as a nuisance,” she says.

Shongwe says she appreciates the communities that are now familiar with her and put out something special that she can sometimes take home to her family.

“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,” she notes.

Shongwe urges Joburg communities to change their attitude towards waste pickers.

“If you see a waste picker outside your house, please think of my story about what a day in our lives look like. And if you have a minute to spare, separate the paper and the plastic. A little help goes an exceptionally long way,” she adds.

Written by Sascha-Lee Joseph

07/11/2022