TRADE AND RECYCLING OF URBAN INORGANIC SOLID WASTE IN NAIROBI 173
where householders place little importance on waste once it is removed from the house
for collection, domestic workers and extended family members now play a key role in
these activities. In these areas itinerant buyers operate through links with domestic
workers Most of the transactions are secretly conducted during the day when house-
holders are away at work. This way, house workers share in the proceeds of such
dealings and thus have developed an interest in the household’s waste management
arrangements. The materials obtained are sold to neighbourhood-based traders Itin-
erant buyers therefore tend to work in areas close to both the selling sites and to their
place of residence, transporting waste materials home for sorting and packing with the
use of family labour. In terms of socio-economic viability, the work of itinerant buyers
has become more difficult and less profitable. Their monthly incomes, averaging Ksh.
3,500 (US$ 46) per month are only slightly higher than those of waste pickers Never-
theless Itinerant buyers have side occupations through which they generate supple-
mentary income. These include farming and small-scale real estate investments. To
become an itinerant buyer, one requires soft loans from relatives and/or friends ranging
from Ksh. 1,000 (US$ 14) to Ksh. 6,300 (US$ 90). Such amounts are out of reach for the
lowest income operators in the chain.
8.8. THE DEALER:CENTRALITY IN THE CHAIN
Dealers are the main trade intermediaries in the channels through which accumulated
waste materials recovered by pickers and buyers are passed on to the small and
large-scale waste reprocessors The position of dealers or small buyers as a category in
the recycling chain is explained by the existence of demand for recyclable waste mate-
rials. Scrap metal dealing for instance existed in Nairobi in the 1960s, ‘serving the
useful purpose of retrieving waste material for reuse’. Licensed dealers purchased
waste scrap metal from a network of collectors who made their living by sourcing
these from ‘odd corners’ and selling them to dealers These fetched 60 cents for copper,
aluminium 40 cents and 5 cents for other materials (see Hake 1977: 186).
Dealers’ activities consist of aggregation of waste materials by buying small quantities
from waste pickers and itinerant buyers and delivering large amounts to factories on
demand. Because of the relatively high volumes required by reprocessors and thus
high costs, it is not possible for waste pickers to deliver waste materials directly to
recycling enterprises.
- Directly translated from the Kikuyu language. Most of the pickers, traders and itinerant buyers are
from the Kikuyu ethnic group (JICA 1998). Beside the proximity of Central Province their place of
origin to the city, it has been claimed that they had a tradition for successful trading or ‘peddling’
(Hake 1977: 179). However, their preponderance in waste picking is also indicative of the erosion of
their erstwhile relatively stronger social and economic base resulting in involvement in activities hith-
erto ethnically shunned (JICA, 1998).