ごみを拾えなくなる…分別センターへの建て替えで生活に打撃も　セネガル

【ダカールＡＦＰ＝時事】セネガルの首都ダカールの外れに広がるブベス埋め立て処分場。高く積み上げられたごみの山の上では鉄製のフックを手に、人々がプラスチックや金属の破片を拾い上げている。そばでは家畜やサギが餌を探している。（写真はセネガル・ダカールのブベス埋め立て処分場で、使えそうなものを探す女性）
　人口３００万人を超えるダカールで出たごみのほとんどが、この処分場に集まる。ごみをあさる人々は金属を見つけやすくするためにごみに火をつけ、それにより、近隣の住宅地に有害なガスが流れ出る。
　何十年もずさんな管理下にあったこの野外の処分場を、セネガル政府は数年のうちに、廃棄物分別センターにする計画だ。これは、処分場から利益を得ている地域経済を脅かす動きでもある。
　悪臭や煙をものともせず、処分場には約２０００人が集まる。ごみの山をかき分け、プラスチックや鉄、アルミニウムを探し出して収入を得ているのだ。人々は再利用できそうなものを卸売業者に売り、業者はそれを企業に再販している。
　処分場に３０年通っているという男性（５０）は、分別センターの建設は、ごみ拾いに来る人々にとっては「よくない」と語った。
　ごみ拾いは危険で汚く大変だが、うまい人は金銭的には報われる。
　女性の非正規雇用問題に取り組むＮＧＯ「ウィーゴ」の２０１８年の調査によると、ブベスでごみを集める人の４分の１が、月に１０万ＣＦＡフラン（約２万円）以上の収入を得ている。
　世界銀行によると、人口１６００万人のセネガルでは、約４割が１日１ドル９０セント（約２０８円）以下で生活している。
　廃棄物選別センターの建設のため、ブベスは２０２５年までに閉鎖される予定だ。
　ウィーゴのマゲット・ジョップ氏は処理場の閉鎖に伴い「職を失う人が出る」と話し、ごみを拾う人々との関わりを強める必要性を強調した。
　マッキ・サル大統領は６月、ごみを拾う人々への支援を約束した。
　だが、前述の男性は心配している。「これからどうしていけばよいのか分からない」と語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/08/30-11:02）

Scores of pickers move along a raised platform of rubbish, scooping up pieces of plastic with iron hooks, alongside cattle and hundreds of egrets also scouring the trash.
The smell is rancid atop what the pickers dub Yemen -- a volcano-like mound of multicoloured refuse in the sprawling Mbeubeuss landfill, on the edge of Senegal's capital Dakar.
Dump trucks tip trash onto the platform that towers over a suburb of the West African metropolis, as pickers lunge towards the fresh piles of garbage.
Everyone is enriching themselves, says Laye Niaye, a security guard, watching men, women and children wade through the trash.
Dakar, a growing city of over three million people, produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste a year.
Almost all of it ends up in Mbeubeuss, a landfill about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the centre which has a notorious reputation as an environmental hazard.
Pickers set fire to the rubbish to find valuable metals, for example, spewing noxious fumes onto neighbouring residential areas.
The landfill is also so big -- estimated at 115 hectares (285 acres) -- that it is difficult to control, with several informal villages within the site.
After decades of chaotic management, the Senegalese government plans to transform the open-air dump into a waste-sorting centre over the next few years.
But the move threatens a thriving local economy.
About 2,000 pickers ignore the stench and the fumes and make money by scavenging for plastic, iron and aluminium among the rubbish.
They sell the recyclables to wholesalers, who then resell to companies.
Mouhamadou Wade, a sinewy 50-year-old who has worked on the site for 30 years, explains what makes a good picker: You have to be a hard man: Tough, courageous and determined.
But like many of his cohort, he is concerned. The waste centre is not good for pickers, Wade says.
- 'Always the losers' -
Waste-picking is dangerous, dirty and hard. But those who excel at it can be well rewarded.
A 2018 study conducted by Wiego, an NGO focussed on women's informal employment, showed that a quarter of pickers in Mbeubeuss earn above 100,000 CFA francs (152 euros, $180) a month.
A minority earn more than twice that sum, but many earn far less.
Senegal is a poor nation of 16 million where about 40 percent of people live on under $1.90 (1.70 euros) a day, according to the World Bank.
Souleiman Diallo, 40, is loading bales of plastic onto a wholesaler's truck.
It's very difficult, he says, adding that he's on the dump because there's no work elsewhere.
Pape Ndiaye, the spokesman of the pickers association, says it has become harder to earn a good living because of fierce competition and stagnant wholesale prices.
It's the middleman that hurts us, says the 66-year-old, reclining in a makeshift hut surrounded by plastic bottles.
Though the pickers perform a vital environmental service, he says, they are always the losers.
- Plastic fumes -
For Abdou Dieng, who runs Mbeubeuss for Senegal's waste-management agency UCG, fires and smoke are the main concern.
He becomes agitated when he sees smoke rising from a platform that was recently sealed with gravel and sand -- the result of a fire set by a picker to flush out valuables.
Once I get my hands on him I'll cause him a lot of problems, vows Dieng, surveying the steaming mound.
The young official was brought in last year to reduce the dump's environmental impact.
The people were revolting because of the plastic fumes wafting over city neighbourhoods, he says.
Dieng has reduced fires by limiting dumping to managed platforms, and by punishing wrongdoers.
Maguette Diop, from the NGO Wiego, says Dieng has improved the landfill. Fewer people are falling ill from the fumes, he says.
In any event, Mbeubeuss is expected to close by 2025 to make way for the waste-sorting centre.
Diop is pushing for more engagement with the pickers as the landfill is wound down, noting: There will be job losses.
In June, President Macky Sall pledged to help the waste pickers.
But Wade, the dump veteran, says everyone is worried. We don't know what we will do tomorrow, he says.