Waste-pickers are key to SA's economy, and collect as much as 80% of post-consumer packaging and paper material
Luyanda Hlatshwayo wakes up at 4am in the abandoned inner-city school building with shattered windows he calls home.
“What people don’t realise is that we’re subsidising the city and its residents. If we don’t go to work, they’d be short on trucks to collect all the garbage.” “But it’s had mixed results in that regard, and it’s really facing a big challenge.” CEOs and top lawyers make as much as R20m a year while the official minimum wage is R20 an hour.
“Even so, the level of inequality and poverty in SA after taxes and spending remains unacceptably high.” Known locally as a trolley-pusher, Hlatshwayo, who speaks five languages, now sits at the very bottom of an army of black workers who fan out daily over the city’s tree-lined neighbourhoods to service the rich.
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