Philasande Sofoyila - working with waste

Originally published on Waste Pickers Makhanda

31-year-old Philasande Sofoyila is originally from a village in Pedi called eMazizini in the Eastern Cape. He now stays at his girlfriend’s house in Hoogenoeg Location in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown).

Both Philasande and his girlfriend are waste pickers at the Makana Municipal landfill. They are invested in waste management in Makana and attended a workshop for waste pickers that was organised by a group students in 2017 at Rhodes University.

Philisande and his girlfriend have stopped going to the landfill since June this year [2020]. The reason they stopped is that there’s been some rogue behaviours among the waste pickers.

Philasande and his girlfriend had nine big plastic bags of cardboard that they spent two long days collecting just to be told it was not theirs by the rascals. The waste pickers who follow their own rules claimed to own recyclable materials that they did not collect.

In this case, Philasande had no one to report his grievances to and instead insisted he would not see his hard work arrogated in broad daylight by the rogues. He burned all nine of the bags. From that day, he and his girlfriend never went back to the dumpsite.

There are other similar occurrences at the dumpsite which tend to lead to fights.

Fighting over recyclable materials and tips among the waste pickers was one of the key issues discussed in the waste pickers workshop in 2017.

Philasande and his girlfriend currently depend on the people who give him bread, milk and clothes in town on certain days of the week. There are six members in the household Philasande, his girlfriend; her three sisters and child. The two sisters are also waste pickers at the dump.

Philasande also grows vegetables in the backyard to add to the bread and milk from the Good Samaritan.

There’s only spinach and spring onion on his garden and he would like to grow more vegetables. But he cannot afford to buy the seeds. So, he’s asking for anyone who can help to donate seeds to grow more vegetables.

* The 2017 workshop was organised by Mzamani Nyalungu (JMS student), Lawrence Stewart and Duncan Seoke who were RU students at the time and partners of the Waste Pickers Movement. The workshop addressed issues faced by the waste pickers and potential solutions and skills development.