Recycling and rubbish collection

Rubbish collections here are private and paid for. A van comes twice weekly to pick up black sacks of household waste. There may not be any formal recycling system here but there are plenty of informal ways of making sure little goes to waste.

When you buy a bottle of Coke, you only buy the Coke, not the bottle. If you want to take the bottles or the crate home you pay a deposit and then trade the bottles for the next batch.

My home help takes any unwanted glass bottles, newspapers etc but I haven’t asked what she does with them.

There are plenty of folk who collect plastic, cloth, and anything else they can re-use, sell or trade. What is left will be burned on the verge, after it has been thoroughly picked-over by Dickensian-looking characters dressed in filthy tattered rags. (No pic of those folk but the fire is in the Kibera slum, in the run up to the election.)

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