Scrap collectors travel tens of kilometers daily, traversing the streets of residential areas to and fro, searching for waste among the under construction building for what is lighter in weight and more expensive.
This exhausting search journey is tedious and surprising and continues throughout all seasons, whether under the blazing sun or in the harsh cold winter conditions because the outcome of this type of work is rewarding in most cases, for those who know the trade and what to look for, where to begin and where to end, says a local Arabic daily.
A look into this trade — which needs no investment in the real sense — by a local Arabic daily says the profession collecting scrap, whether from “aluminum, iron, plastic, used clothes” in addition to furniture and cartons, revealed that it is widely popular among a significant number of those who work for cleaning companies which have contracts with the Kuwait Municipality.
These workers follow a strategy that facilitates the process of collecting the required materials. When they come to collect the garbage, they open the bags and empty them completely inside the waste collection vehicle, and check their contents to see if something valuable is available.
When something valuable is found, it is segregated from the rest of the garbage. One of the workers who identified himself as Shahid al-Islam told the daily that scrap collection is based on specialties as well. For example, he works in collecting recyclable materials, such as aluminum, iron, batteries, and sometimes cartons. If there are furniture or electrical appliances, he communicates with his colleagues who specialize in this type of waste and gets between one and two dinars just for this information.
Shahid says when he collects aluminum or iron, he takes it to one of centers in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh, which are unlicensed, according to him, and the quantity is weighed and sold in kilograms, ranging between 250 fils and 1.5 dinars. The value of a kilogram of soft drink cans reaches is sold for 750 fils and he said that he sometimes collects between 2 and 3 kilograms of them per day.
Another car maintenance worker in the Shuwaikh area, says he sells used batteries to support his monthly salary. He says that 90% of customers leave the used batteries in the sales centers without taking them and a few of them negotiate with the seller to get a discount of one dinar for it, but in fact the workers collect them and transport them to the stores that collect batteries and iron in Shuwaikh, where they are sold according to their size, as the value of the bigger ones is 3 dinars.
Furniture and electrical
On the other hand, roving workers specialize in collecting cartons in coordination with cooperative societies and branches, in addition to cleaners who prepare the available quantities and place them near containers for collection when they pass through the area.
The value of one half-lorry load of cartons can fetch between 10 and 15 dinars. He stated that the best profit that can be achieved in the “scrap collection” trade is in collecting and selling iron materials or furniture and electrical appliances, which is done in cooperation with different workshops to re-run and upholster them and then sell them in makeshift markets or at the Friday market.
These workers pointed out that tires and plastic are one of the most prominent materials currently targeted in sales, but licensed companies are keen to collect them and put containers for them and they have their own workers.
A well-informed source in the Public Authority for Manpower said that the profession of scrap collecting and storage is one of the violating professions that expose those who work in this trade without a license to legal accountability and sometimes can result in deportation.
Prices of some forms of scrap
— 1 to 3 dinars is the value of the used battery
— 750 fils per kilogram of soft drink cans
— 250 fils per kilogram of paper cartons
— 5 dinars for electrical and furniture
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