Ma Yu launched her makeshift polystyrene boat into a Yangon creek for another day of trawling the filthy waters for plastic and tin cans with her team of “river cleaners.”
About 10 others join her in the dawn light, driven to work the fetid gray-brown murk of Pazundaung Creek by the economic crisis that has gripped Myanmar since the 2021 military coup.
They gather recyclable materials to sell to traders, their only source of income since losing their jobs after the putsch that upended the economy and sparked widespread unrest.
Photo: AFP
“There was no job for me on the land and I’m responsible for my children and my husband’s healthcare,” the 36-year-old Ma Yu told reporters, her cheeks and forehead daubed with the sandalwood thanakha paste popularly used in Myanmar to ward off the blazing sun.
“So I rented some polystyrene sheets and I went onto the creek with my neighbor. On the first day we managed to collect some plastic and cans to sell. We were happy,” she said.
Myanmar’s economy has been battered by the fallout of the coup, with more than 1 million people losing their jobs, according to the International Labour Organization.
Photo: AFP
Ma Ngal, 41, came to the river after losing her job selling vegetables and fish at a Yangon stall, with her carpenter husband also unable to find regular work.
“I didn’t tell my parents and family members that we are doing this work,” Ma Ngal said. “But they found out, and I had to explain to them that I’m doing this for my family.”
On a good day a picker can find trash worth 30,000 kyat (US$10), but more often the take-home pay is about US$3.
“Before we started working there was lots of plastic, cans and bottles on the creek,” said Kyu Kyu Khine, 39, who used to collect trash from Yangon’s streets.
The pickers try to time their working days with the tides — floating downstream in search of more trash when it ebbs and riding it back upstream at the end of a shift.
However, the tidal surges can be treacherous, said Ma Yu, who was knocked off her boat on one of her early forays onto the water.
“Sometimes I think that if something happens to me, I’m all alone here and I can’t do anything,” she said.
The waters also carry regular reminders of the breakdown of order in Yangon, where residents say crime is surging in the aftermath of the coup.
The pickers regularly see dead bodies floating on the water, Ma Yu said.
“It’s not an easy job but ... the important thing for me is that my children don’t starve,” she said.
Her fellow picker Ma Ngal said there are some lighter moments.
“Some people joke with us when they see us working. They say ‘here come the municipal team, they know how to clean up the river,’” she said.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
IMPASSE: US President Donald Trump pressed to end the filibuster in a sign that he is unlikely to compromise despite Democrat offers for a delayed healthcare vote The US government shutdown stretched into its 40th day yesterday even as senators stayed in Washington for a grueling weekend session hoping to find an end to the funding fight that has disrupted flights nationwide, threatened food assistance for millions of Americans and left federal workers without pay. The US Senate has so far shown few signs of progress over a weekend that could be crucial for the shutdown fight. Republican leaders are hoping to hold votes on a new package of bills that would reopen the government into January while also approving full-year funding for several parts of government, but
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS