Waste is one of the many unintended consequences in the epoch of modernisation. Cape Town is no exemption, producing up to 7,000 tonnes of waste per day. To make matters worse, just 10% is recycled, with the rest accumulating across one of the city’s whopping 164 landfill sites (Cebuulski 2018). These situate around the outskirts of Cape Town, dislocated from the centre in a similar fashion to the city’s Townships. Living in proximity to these waste dumps exposes black communities to disproportionate amounts of toxic chemicals and harmful gases.
Why is that non-whites are burdened with the socio-environmental implications of Cape Town’s industrial growth? This blog will further my exploration of the power asymmetries inherent in the city’s racialised, ecological landscape. To begin, I will discuss how Township communities have demonstrated innovation in the face of growing amounts of waste.
For the Western laymen, waste is considered a commodity at the end of its life: worthless, unwanted and thus compelled to ‘throwaway’. In contrast, much of the Global South has reworked the meaning of waste, reinstating its value and re-entering it into processes of production and consumption.
Dumped with the superfluous remains of developed economies and domestic accumulation of waste; the burgeoning presence of landfills across cities such as Cape Town has been seen as an opportunity by the informal sector, rather than a burden. ‘Waste pickers’ have championed recycling efforts, recovering goods that can be reused, repaired and resold. Figure 1 highlights an example of this work in the Township of Philippi, where Blue Sky Recycling acts as a buy back centre, rewarding workers with financial credits for their collection of recyclable waste. The video shows how informal labour has lifted people out of unemployment and provided valuable contributions to the livelihoods of struggling Township dwellers.
The waste pickers of Cape Town have shown to be agents of a circular economy. Their work demonstrates a seminal shift from a ‘linear’ urban metabolism (see figure 2), towards a circular framework that harnesses waste as a resource through restorative and regenerative design. Consequently, the environmental consequences associated with the predominant linear model are somewhat alleviated.
Township workers have thus transformed into ecological actors in the redistribution of urban resources, improving efficiencies and reducing landfill. It is estimated that waste pickers salvage between 80-90% of paper and discarded packaging in South Africa, preventing an even greater accumulation of waste. For such an invaluable contribution to urban waste management, informal workers do not receive the credit they deserve, earning very little in return for the recyclables they sell on.
Inclusion within the formal sector would grant Township dwellers the necessary compensation and protection for their contributions to the economy and mitigation of ecological impact. Guidelines have been proposed to integrate waste pickers into the formal economy, but there is little faith on the ground that such plans will benefit workers and/or even materialise.
Although waste picking has boosted both the economy and employment levels in non-white communities, blind acceptance of this informal trade masks the environmental injustice at play. The ecological and health outcomes of waste accumulation are unevenly weighted upon the shoulders of non-white communities, with the white privilege protected form the everyday reality of landfill exposure
Out of sight, out of mind?
The marginalisation of non-whites to their Townships and waste to landfill sites share similar connotations through a lens of urban political ecology. As aforementioned, waste can be understood as an unwanted by-product of modern day life. Can the same be said for non-white communities in Cape Town, exiled to the peripheries since the days of Apartheid? Mbembe considered “the human itself as a waste product at the interface of race and capitalism” (2011: 7).
Considering the legacy of racial segregation, Cape Town exemplifies Mbembe’s notion, with apartheid spatialities living proof that black people endure ongoing subjugation and relegation. Much like urban waste, non-white communities have been cast out and disconnected from the city’s infrastructure. This has become an unfortunate trend amongst most postcolonial economies, with peripheral, typically non-white populations deemed superfluous to the formal economy and wage labour (Standing 2016).
This blog has exposed how both the material and epistemic notions of waste are inherently entangled with race. In summary, not only does the black population bear the brunt of landfill complications, their geographical dislocation questions conventional conceptions of waste to include humans itself.
List of References:
Cebulski, A. (2018) “Western Cape’s mounting rubbish problem” (WWW) Cape Town: News24 (https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/western-capes-mounting-rubbish-problem-20180519-2; 15 February 2020).
Mbembe, A. (2011) “Democracy as a community life”, The Salon: Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism.
MultimediaLive (2018) “Meet the waste pickers making cash from ‘black gold’” (Online Video) Cape Town: MultimediaLive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=RVEXAXA8snw&feature=emb_logo; 15 February 2020).
Standing, G. (2016) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, London: Bloomsbury.
UNEP (2017) “What is Urban Metabolism?” (Online Video) Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu-a1hFEV7Q&t=5s; 15 February 2020).
Urban Political Ecology UCL 
Really interesting post.
The datas concerning the proportion of packaging salvaged by waste pickers are quite impressive. I wonder why public authorities don’t rely on their effectiveness and their ‘know-how’ to implement an official recycling policy that would protect, respect and remunerate more these workers, especially if guidelines have been already produced. Of course, it is not worth if it is not to the benefit of waste pickers. Maybe public authorities don’t have enough financial resources or it is not in their priorities.
It is always sad to hear about inequalities in South Africa, both racial or economic. But you seems to use this perspective of anlaysis in most of your posts and it seems to be unfortunately particularly relevant for your city.
The comparison between waste and non-white communities as unwanted byproduct is rather adventurous and sensitive, but it could be also striking in a positive way to raise awareness on this issue.
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Really interesting commentary on the socio-spatial workings of waste management in Cape Town. I also agree with the idea of integrating the informal with the formal; the benefits of status quo waste governance does not suit the needs of everyone, but improving the forms of waste management to include what already works would be a good starting point.
A similar model of waste management is present in Rio de Janeiro, where the informal economy accounts for processing most of the city’s waste. The catadores (salvagers of refuse) also see meaning in re-purposing waste materials. The work of catadores is implicitly recognised as central to how Rio functions on a day to day basis, and as such there has been little recognition by the municipal government of the need to bridge the gap between the informal/formal and the potential benefits this could bring. Cape Town would serve as a successful model for other cities if plans to integrate different forms of waste management succeed. However, as you mention, this issue is deeply rooted in apartheid. Perhaps a solution to Cape’s waste should also consider resolving lasting legacies of systemic racism.
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