Just like in America, one sees huge garbage trucks with hydraulic crushers ply even the narrow, sandy streets of Cite Assemblee. I understand it's the same throughout Dakar. Unlike in American neighborhoods, however, there is no intermediate step between the household trash and the garbage truck.
In the States, we collect our cast-offs in sturdy plastic bags manufactured for the purpose. We fill and deposit them outdoors in critter-defying, great big tubs, securely sealed where they await scheduled curb-side trash collection day. That's when the garbage truck comes in. We do not sully our hands further with the trash; well-paid, strong, gloved city workers heave the contents of our garbage bins into the truck and move on. A great system.
In addition, we have become a nation of recyclers. We add less to landfill; we, reuse things or return them to their original states to be formed anew.
In Dakar, between the trash accumulating in the kitchen and the behemoth truck roaring around the lanes, there is a considerably less direct route. Unlike the American flow chart, here it is like a series of ant paths that meander across each other with more or less purpose.
First, there are no trash cans, either within dwellings or outside them. All the trash in this household is collected in flimsy plastic shopping bags that brought home purchases from the boutique, the pharmacy, or the big Casino market. These bags dangle from the door knobs of the kitchen and the bathrooms. We never throw away a plastic bag.
The corollary to this is that you don't carry your own shopping bag with you to the store or even to the fruit-seller's stall. If you do that (as I did a couple of times) you deplete the household stock of garbage bags. If you think about it, all plastic bags that come into the household are recycled. And I guess all the vendors expect you to take them anyway, so there you are.
Once the kitchen bag is filled, or the one with diapers, they must go somewhere. Most of them get piled outside in a little mountain in one corner of the courtyard. I am sure this is appreciated by the mosquitos and flies and perhaps reduces the number who are lured into the house when the maid fails to close the door.
Others, the ones that are filled with really smelly garbage or organic materials sure to rot are tied off and put in the freezer. A goodly portion of the freezer is stuffed each week by lumpy bags of garbage that would otherwise be reeking and making it very unpleasant for me to do the baby's laundry under the courtyard spigot.
But how do you get the garbage to the truck, and when? Where is the collection point?
This is where it gets interesting. Apparently there is no designated pick-up day: Most days the truck is somewhere around. You have to listen for the whistle to know if it's near. This is simply a sharp, high whistle—the plastic whistle you had when you were a kid. The sound carries because the environment is so peaceful that every sound of unusual nature or volume instantly gains attention.
Last Tuesday when the maid was here, I told Yves that I heard the whistle. There was a rather tall accumulation of bags in the courtyard, and I the freezer was stuffed too. Yves, Lucy, and the maid all leapt into action and charged out the door (after many unlockings of inside and exterior doors), each dangling four or five bags from both hands. They came back empty handed.
On that occasion, they had delivered the trash not to the truck, but to the horse cart driver who serves as intermediary. You can pile your bags on the cart for a small fee and when the cart's full, the driver finds the truck and empties his load. Another way is to take all the trash to the boutique across the street. The boutique owner will keep it briefly when it's clear that the truck or the carter will arrive before too long.
And of course, you can always just throw it all directly into the truck when it passes by. I've seen this—plenty of people do it—but it always looks comical to me. People are very small compared to trash trucks, and three or four grocery bags of refuse aren't much compared to the volumes Americans are used to seeing heaved into those mighty jaws. But that's the way things work here.
In terms of recycling, 1.5 liter bottles are much in demand and are reused as much as possible. We buy filtered water in 10 liter quantities, but dispense it into 1.5 liter bottles that are used time and again. In the courtyard, there are stacks and stacks of used bottles.
Lucy tells me that they are kept for the maid to take way to use and to distribute to friends. They are much in demand in the many households where juices are made. It's very common to produce one's own juice from bissap (hibiscus), mangoes, oranges, baobab…you name it. And of course, they're used for water in all its uses.
Alas, this system that functions well by its own logic could still benefit from one major, missing component, that being the introduction of public trash receptacles and a means for orderly emptying thereof. The streets, the empty lots, the private properties are shocking by Western standards, covered with trash, old clothing, animal droppings, and emptied basins from household cleaning—or whatever other liquid you can think of.
This apartment is on the corner of the building, with typical views out of both sides. The building door, guest room, and living room look onto the alley, a normal residential byway. I have to take pictures through the screen and between the wooden safety bars, but these are representative of the little landscape beloved of the grazing cows and fearless, fighting feral cats.
Out the other side of the apartment, overlooked by the master and baby's bedrooms, is a vacant lot for which the landlord is responsible. He is, to his credit, as responsible for it as every landlord in the city, for I have seen not a single one in any better shape. Lucy and Yves once cleared it themselves. Their landlord was surprised that they had and muttered about reimbursing them but quickly forgot about it. I think that this landscape is so pervasive that is literally not seen. Little boys play here and set off firecrackers. At nights, the cats fight. Boys and men urinate and defecate here.
There is one nicely kept soccer field, kept by the boys who want to play there. But unless there is a public agreement that a particular place serves the interests of many, it will not be maintained by citizens, and there seems to be no public infrastructure for doing so.
Children must go outside to play, but here, the ones at liberty to do so are dirty and rough and almost feral. Where will Phillipe play? Over the years, I will find out. I hope he will have freedom in a clean outdoor space, outside his apartment.
In the States, we collect our cast-offs in sturdy plastic bags manufactured for the purpose. We fill and deposit them outdoors in critter-defying, great big tubs, securely sealed where they await scheduled curb-side trash collection day. That's when the garbage truck comes in. We do not sully our hands further with the trash; well-paid, strong, gloved city workers heave the contents of our garbage bins into the truck and move on. A great system.
In addition, we have become a nation of recyclers. We add less to landfill; we, reuse things or return them to their original states to be formed anew.
In Dakar, between the trash accumulating in the kitchen and the behemoth truck roaring around the lanes, there is a considerably less direct route. Unlike the American flow chart, here it is like a series of ant paths that meander across each other with more or less purpose.
First, there are no trash cans, either within dwellings or outside them. All the trash in this household is collected in flimsy plastic shopping bags that brought home purchases from the boutique, the pharmacy, or the big Casino market. These bags dangle from the door knobs of the kitchen and the bathrooms. We never throw away a plastic bag.The corollary to this is that you don't carry your own shopping bag with you to the store or even to the fruit-seller's stall. If you do that (as I did a couple of times) you deplete the household stock of garbage bags. If you think about it, all plastic bags that come into the household are recycled. And I guess all the vendors expect you to take them anyway, so there you are.
Once the kitchen bag is filled, or the one with diapers, they must go somewhere. Most of them get piled outside in a little mountain in one corner of the courtyard. I am sure this is appreciated by the mosquitos and flies and perhaps reduces the number who are lured into the house when the maid fails to close the door.
But how do you get the garbage to the truck, and when? Where is the collection point?
This is where it gets interesting. Apparently there is no designated pick-up day: Most days the truck is somewhere around. You have to listen for the whistle to know if it's near. This is simply a sharp, high whistle—the plastic whistle you had when you were a kid. The sound carries because the environment is so peaceful that every sound of unusual nature or volume instantly gains attention.Last Tuesday when the maid was here, I told Yves that I heard the whistle. There was a rather tall accumulation of bags in the courtyard, and I the freezer was stuffed too. Yves, Lucy, and the maid all leapt into action and charged out the door (after many unlockings of inside and exterior doors), each dangling four or five bags from both hands. They came back empty handed.
On that occasion, they had delivered the trash not to the truck, but to the horse cart driver who serves as intermediary. You can pile your bags on the cart for a small fee and when the cart's full, the driver finds the truck and empties his load. Another way is to take all the trash to the boutique across the street. The boutique owner will keep it briefly when it's clear that the truck or the carter will arrive before too long.
And of course, you can always just throw it all directly into the truck when it passes by. I've seen this—plenty of people do it—but it always looks comical to me. People are very small compared to trash trucks, and three or four grocery bags of refuse aren't much compared to the volumes Americans are used to seeing heaved into those mighty jaws. But that's the way things work here.
In terms of recycling, 1.5 liter bottles are much in demand and are reused as much as possible. We buy filtered water in 10 liter quantities, but dispense it into 1.5 liter bottles that are used time and again. In the courtyard, there are stacks and stacks of used bottles.
Alas, this system that functions well by its own logic could still benefit from one major, missing component, that being the introduction of public trash receptacles and a means for orderly emptying thereof. The streets, the empty lots, the private properties are shocking by Western standards, covered with trash, old clothing, animal droppings, and emptied basins from household cleaning—or whatever other liquid you can think of.
This apartment is on the corner of the building, with typical views out of both sides. The building door, guest room, and living room look onto the alley, a normal residential byway. I have to take pictures through the screen and between the wooden safety bars, but these are representative of the little landscape beloved of the grazing cows and fearless, fighting feral cats.
Out the other side of the apartment, overlooked by the master and baby's bedrooms, is a vacant lot for which the landlord is responsible. He is, to his credit, as responsible for it as every landlord in the city, for I have seen not a single one in any better shape. Lucy and Yves once cleared it themselves. Their landlord was surprised that they had and muttered about reimbursing them but quickly forgot about it. I think that this landscape is so pervasive that is literally not seen. Little boys play here and set off firecrackers. At nights, the cats fight. Boys and men urinate and defecate here.
There is one nicely kept soccer field, kept by the boys who want to play there. But unless there is a public agreement that a particular place serves the interests of many, it will not be maintained by citizens, and there seems to be no public infrastructure for doing so.Children must go outside to play, but here, the ones at liberty to do so are dirty and rough and almost feral. Where will Phillipe play? Over the years, I will find out. I hope he will have freedom in a clean outdoor space, outside his apartment.
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