166 ANNE M. KARANJA, MOSES M. IKIARA, THEO C. DAVIES
The capacity of different actors to contribute to aspects of sustainable development is
a function of the social, financial and legal realm in which they operate, and which
determines their position in the chain. For the lower levels the activities are illegal and
their working conditions anything but favourable.
8.4. STREET AND DUMP WASTE PICKING
According to Hake (1977: 35-6) the phenomenon of homeless people living off streets
was a feature of Nairobi as early as 1901, and is responsible for the enactment of
vagrancy laws in 1902. In his survey of garbage pickers in Nairobi, Odegi-Awuondo
found a 60-year-old garbage picker who had been collecting and trading in bones since
1944 (Odegi-Awuondo, 1994: 61-2). Waste picking therefore is an old activity in
Nairobi, but has changed in scale and arrangements in accordance with the demo-
graphic and socio-economic transformations of the city (Karanja, thesis in
preparation).
The first known recovery of waste materials for sale in Nairobi can be traced to 1963,
when people recovered the copper-holed coins used by the colonial government,
which were discarded by the new government at a dumping ground in Mathare
North^3. A kilogram of these coins sold for Ksh. 2.50 to scrap metal dealers Other types
of materials retrieved for sale and reuse in the 1960s included bottles, scrap metal,
rubber, tin cans, packing cases and cartons as well as building materials (Hake 1977:
186). Waste picking continued throughout the 1970s but was rather insignificant and
largely associated with the parking boy^4 phenomenon. The main materials picked
included steel fragments, bones, paper, aluminium, copper and tins.
The market for these was limited and not many people were involved. Waste picking
became much more noticeable in the city from the mid-1980s onwards. An over-
whelming majority of 63 (94 percent) amongst street waste pickers and 54 (73
percent) of dump waste pickers in our samples affirmed having started waste picking
at around this time. This was further corroborated through the case histories of
long-time pickers who emphasised that the numbers of waste pickers increased and
competition for waste materials became one of the major problems in waste picking
during this period. It is also at this time, according to the pickers, that serious fluctua-
tion of prices began. Ironically, there was also an increase in the waste materials avail-
able for recovery in the streets, as indiscriminate dumping became rampant. Waste
generation rates at this time continued to increase steadily while the collection levels
- This is one of the oldest and largest slums in the city. It is not unusual for waste to be deposited in
low-income areas. - Now dubbed ‘parking family’ as a proliferation of more people, of all ages including women, move
into the city to eke out subsistence from activities hitherto the preserve of parking boys. These range
from begging, stealing, assisting car parking, cleaning as well as guarding for token payments.