Trash and Treasures

When I was a kid, everyone put their trash at the end of their driveways on Sunday nights. Around 7 pm, you’d see people driving around picking through the trash. I remember one time my dad took me out to see what there was- a table, a stroller, a highchair, a broken tv, and a couch- nothing worth getting… until we found the little red wagon. It had a broken axle, but we knew that it could be easily fixed and my little brother and I would put it to good use. By the time we came back with the car, someone else had already taken it from the trash. Oh, the little red wagon.

This memory flooded my mind on Wednesday night. Around 6 pm, Dokte picked us up and took us to Truitier, a landfill located outside of Port-Au-Prince. One of my monthly donors got me in contact with George, a man she knew from high school. He is a subcontractor for the company that manages Truitier and was helping us dispose of some waste. While we were there, he pointed to the part of the landfill where the garbage trucks entered and dumped what had been collected in the streets and outside of homes in Port-Au-Prince and Cite Soleil. He asked us if we could see all the people. As Rachael and I strained to see through the dark, it became obvious that the lights we saw were headlamps from people picking through the trash. George told us that there were between 60 and 100 “pickers” living in Truitier. Each time a truck comes in, they pick through what was left behind. If there is food, they will eat it. If there is a tire, they will burn it, remove the metal, and sell it. If there are cans and bottles, they will collect them in a bag and recycle them. In fact, one picker has made over $30,000 from selling metal and recycling.  He’s already put that money towards building a house in the country. It may not be the ideal way to live, but it may be one of the few ways for this man's dream to come true.

Both here and afar, it is true that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 

The Pickers
Photo by Alexandre Meneghini

 Thank you George and your crew, for all the hard work you do at Truitier.