Working the Landfills a Dangerous Occupation

The purring of the truck climbing the hills triggers excitement among the workers of the basurero municipal, the largest landfill in Tegucigalpa. Instantly, dozens of men and women abandon their activity and head towards the new load, seemingly indifferent to its terrible smell. They clear a path through the circling buzzards, the makeshift huts, and the piles of rubbish, expecting to be among the first to disembowel the untouched bags.

These bags bear for them an ambiguous significance. On one hand, they enclose the cans, paper and plastic bottles that will provide a bit of extra income necessary to survive in Tegucigalpa – a recycling worker makes around 100 Lempiras a day. On the other hand, the accessibility of the money and the lack of control of the activity act as an unbreakable tie that attaches people to their miserable condition. It discourages adults from looking for better jobs and keeps children out of school.

These people are the poorest of the poor in the Honduran society. They are called “pepenadores,” Spanish slang meaning the scavengers of the city dumps. Their appearance speaks volume about the working conditions. Some try to protect themselves against the dirtiness and the toxicity of the surrounding area with caps on their heads or even completely covering their faces with a hood or a napkin. Most of them are wearing t-shirts whose inscriptions have disappeared behind a layer of grime.

Rick Beck is a member of the Honduran branch of ‘Youth for Christ,’ a US-based missionary organization. Every Friday, he and his team of volunteer cooks visit the dumps to deliver spiritual and material food to a couple of hundred pepenadores. The 17 lempira meal the ministry provides – today a small plate of rice mixed with beans and slices of mortadella - seem to be sincerely appreciated, considering the many smiling faces and the line rapidly growing in front of the car. Though, as Beck reminds, the meals count for very little in comparison with the human dignity that is brought by an exchange of words or a vigorous handshake.

Beck judges the situation objectively by tackling the issue as a structural problem: “If they work hard, people can make more money by recycling waste than by cleaning houses. Landfills are a legitimate workplace since, in contrast with factories, the work is always there.” He also points out that “pepenadores can find more dignity in this kind of work than by being exploited in factories.”

According to UNICEF sources, Honduras used to have the highest rate of children working in landfills in Latin America, with an estimate of 2,000 nationwide. The majority is boys between the ages of 12 and 17, but the presence of girls and even younger children is especially striking since the daily fights and violence make the place extremely dangerous. Many of the children are virtually born in the landfills, as is the case of two young boys of 13 and 14 whose mother told HTW the painful story. The two have grown up in the dumps and haven’t known any other way of life or education. For them, transitioning into a more normal lifestyle would have dramatic consequences since they don’t have any attachment with what it entails.

In 2005, the Honduran government made an effort to get children out of the dumps. New ordinances were signed to prohibit the presence of children as well as pregnant mothers in the garbage sites. A rehabilitation program had also been put in place. These measures initially proved successful and the presence of children in the basurero municipal decreased sharply from approximately 200 down to about thirty. Nevertheless, the lack of resources and motivation rapidly led to the abandonment of program enforcement and to the return of children at the site.

Costa Rica has addressed the phenomenon by constructing barriers around the sites and by attacking the recycling issue from the origin, i.e. the behavior of households. The landfills, now devoid from any valuable waste, do not present any interest for potential scavengers. However, such measures wouldn’t help to fix the Honduran issue since children in this country work in the landfills due to the difficult socio-economical situation. Within that context, keeping children out cannot be reduced to the question of forbidding access; it also needs to somehow steer these children back to school. That would require the parents to make up for the lost ‘income’ their children provide working the dumps.

Indeed, the situation of the family has to be considered as a whole. Children make more money with garbage than with education, and many parents cannot afford to not have their kids scavenge waste. Some programs are already underway to offer parents training to improve their job skills. In a country where 63% of the population lives under the poverty threshold, it is not expected to provide social assistance and houses for all of them. Nevertheless, the unemployment issue and the poor working environment in ‘regular’ emplacements have to be tackled in priority in order to give to pepenadores a credible alternative to the work in the basurero.