TRADE AND RECYCLING OF URBAN INORGANIC SOLID WASTE IN NAIROBI 171
bouring countries (Uganda, South Africa) and from as far as France. Although more
concrete data on this aspect was not obtained especially from public sector sources
(e.g. Ministry of Trade and Industry), those involved for substantial lengths of time in
waste picking and trade were consistent in tracing the sharp price fluctuations to the
late 1980s followed by much more steady declines in the 1990s. The trends were
largely blamed on the SAPs-led liberalisation reforms especially those on trade and
finance. These actors saw the imposition of taxes on imported waste paper as a mech-
anism that could help correct this anomaly but the counter explanations i.e. the
prevailing short supply of high quality waste paper and how this had affected the
LSREs production processes seemed plausible and made economic sense. Moreover,
owing to the lack of clear policy on the importation of waste paper, the government
was reluctant to interfere with the sector in the direction of tax impositions or adjust-
ments because of the other benefits accruing.
The demand for scrap-metals on the other hand is higher because these are extensively
recycled by both small- and large-scale enterprises. There also is less reuse at source
and along the commodity chain.
The preponderance of plastic materials among dump waste pickers stands out clearly.
Dump waste pickers continued to gather plastics regardless of the very low prices,
because demand at the recycling factories had at the time fallen. Large heaps of plastic
materials could be observed at the traders’ yards as purchases continued albeit at very
low prices, in the hope of selling it ‘when the factories re-open’. The low demand and
poor prices however may have caused less recovery of plastics upstream (i.e. by street
waste pickers and itinerant byers), resulting in its plentiful presence at the dumps and
inadvertent preference by dump waste pickers.
Bottles are salvaged extensively before the collection and transportation of waste from
source and are therefore not found in any significant amount at the dump. There is also
a buy-back or bottle-returns arrangement for soft drink bottles by the manufacturers
via the Central Glass Industries (CGI), a large-scale glass reprocessing company.
Broken glass (vunjika) is too heavy to be carried about and is therefore avoided by
street pickers, and is instead popular at the dumps. However, CGI had at the time of
our filedwork ceased the purchase of local broken glass resulting in excessive and
conspicuous output at the dumps and at traders’ premises.
Aluminium, copper, brass, lead and zinc (non-ferrous metals), which are easily differ-
entiated, manually sorted and cleaned fetch higher and stable prices of up to Ksh. 30
per kg. They yield considerable environmental and economic benefit as they require
relatively less energy in recycling (see Powell, 1983) and have more applications than
the ferrous metals (iron and steel). These are however very rarely available in the city
especially in the streets. Bones also fetch better prices but are similarly difficult to find