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Plastic bags spawn cottage industry in Ivory Coast

By Christophe Koffi
AFP, ABIDJAN
Sunday, Apr 06, 2008, Page 12

Women collect plastic bags on Friday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Thousands spend each day with their feet and hands in wastewater, washing used plastic bags. Two tonnes are cleaned per day to be recycled into plastic objects. They may be the scourge of the landscape, but recycling the bags has become part of the economy. PHOTO: AFP

They may be the scourge of cityscapes and the countryside and the bane of environmentalists, but discarded plastic bags have spawned a growing and lucrative cottage industry in Ivory Coast.

Thousands of men and women, dubbed manan-ferela — bag washers in the local Malinke language — spend their days collecting and washing bags that are then recycled into new plastic objects with the label: “Made in Ivory Coast.”

Following a 2002 foiled coup in this West African state, poverty has grown, prices have risen and the wealth gap has widened. Desperation bred initiative and potential was spotted in this modern detritus.

The political and military crisis has “considerably reduced supplies of polystyrene, a chemical component used in the manufacture of plastic objects, forcing up the cost of production,” city official Pascal Amichia said.

But the used plastic bags and packaging were everywhere; they just needed collecting and could then be reprocessed into the scarce raw material.

A woman washes plastic bags for reuse in Abidjan. As poverty has grown in Ivory Coast, those desperate to earn a living have found new forms of income. PHOTO: AFP

“In Abidjan, we’ve always had fanico [laundry washers], but today we talk more about manan-ferela,” Amichia said.

The number of people crouching to rinse their bags at every possible water source in the economic capital has soared in recent years.

City officials estimate these workers wash 2 tonnes of material each day to sell to factories.

Many start their search at the Akouedo public dump on Abidjan’s outskirts, the repository for some 3,000 tonnes of garbage produced daily by Abidjan’s 4 million residents — and more notoriously, one of the sites in 2006 where hundreds of tonnes of petrochemical waste from a foreign ship was dumped in a scandal that caused at least 15 deaths and poisoned 100,000 others.

While much of the world is fighting to clamp down on the use of non-biodegradable bags — from Europe to China and some African states — Ivory Coast has not joined the drive.

The garbage, however, has created an employment niche for the Ivorian poor, who account for 45 percent of the population, UN figures show.

The downside is that handling the garbage is detrimental to health.

Many manan-ferela head to the Yopougon industrial zone to rinse their bags in huge gutters fed by factory wastewater.

“We’re working here to be able to feed our families, despite the risk of illness,” 16-year-old Aminata said.

Once dry, the bags are sold to factories, many of them Lebanese-owned.

The bags are then ground into powder used to manufacture objects, notably plastic kitchen utensils or tarpaulins.

The snowballing business has inspired some to seek venture capital to upgrade the industry.

“We are now compiling the documents we need to obtain financial backing,” said Oumar Yeo, a representative for a group of manan-ferela.

This financial aid will also be used to improve “the abominable working conditions,” he said.
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