Women recyclers taking care of the city

Misiwe Maphumulo and Sarah Heneck Recycling has a multitude of benefits; it protects the environment, saves the municipality money, and helps many people sustain their livelihoods. Let’s unpack this a little bit: Protecting the environment: Recyclable materials such as cardboard, paper, plastic, cans and glass that are not recycled either ends up as litter in … Read more

Exciting Infrastructure Project for Waste Pickers- Under Construction

Rebecca Plumbley Informal recycling is a well-established activity in Durban. Recycling paper and cardboard is an important element in the domestic paper-making industry,[1] as well as being vital to the government’s green economy strategy. Waste pickers salvage cardboard in public spaces as well as from local shops with whom they have developed relationships; they then … Read more

AeT Intern Wins Prestigious Architectural Students’ Competition

Tasmi Quazi Every year, the prestigious “Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year Competition” is held at a regional level at eight universities across South Africa in the run-up to the national finals.  Asiye eTafuleni’s (AeT) intern, Dennis Stols’ entry which proposed a recycling facility for the informal cardboard recyclers in the Durban CBD was the … Read more

“Informal” Economy Contributions to the Functioning of the Economy

Tasmi Quazi A common myth is that the “formal” and “informal” economies are two distinct realities that function separately; economically and spatially. Although the distinction itself is riddled with a lack of clarity and contention, value chain analyses of specific sectors has shown that the two are linked. Moreover, there are many thriving spatial examples … Read more

Inclusion of Waste Pickers into National and Local Government Plans

By Tasmi Quazi & Richard Dobson Paper presented at the eThekwini-University Research Symposium on 19 September 2012 NPO Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) was commissioned by eThekwini Municipality’s Imagine Durban Project to implement a pilot project to test ways of improving the livelihoods of existing waste pickers operating in Durban, South Africa. By referring to this case … Read more