The Mbeubeuss rubbish dump lies an hour’s drive out of the Senegalese capital, Dakar. The man-made mountain range of trash, laid out on a 600-hectare site that grows taller by the day, takes in a daily 1,200 tonnes of household, industrial, chemical and hospital waste. A pungent smell burns the nostrils as punctured tyres burn in small piles and smoke rises out of the trash.

Like many garbage dumps in Africa, Mbeubeuss is a source of wealth for the desperately poor, who either live in the valley below or travel each day to the site to sort through the garbage for items to sell or recycle.

Kalidu Ba, 38, has been making a living there since he was 14. As soon as a truck carrying waste from a petrochemical firm roars up the track, he flags down the driver, tells him where to dump his cargo, and even before the load is settled begins to pick through, within seconds finding a steel pipe, a can and a bit of metal coil.

Dressed in jeans and flip-flops, he describes a typical day of work as he sifts through the garbage with his bare hands.

“I start each day around 8 or 9 a.m. and stay until 5 or 6 p.m. I look for anything with aluminum, iron or bronze, as well as spoons and bottles. I work with my partner Malik and we share our tent with some of the others. We organize to come together in the morning because we are like a family here. Some people live here but we share the space.
There are some spaces that are public - and anyone can take from them - but we have our territory where we work. We’ve arranged with trucks from private companies to dump their loads in our territory. It’s industrial waste we sort through, because we can find a lot of aluminum in there. Once we’ve gathered enough, we call a buyer who sends a truck to pick it up.”

“Some friends of mine brought me here when I was 14. We came to find stuff that we could sell, and then I just kept coming back. That’s how I got started doing this. If I could do something else, I would, but I do this because I need to survive.

“And I like working for myself because when you work for someone there are always problems with your employer and you’re always hassled. With this, you can come and go as you please.

“I can’t say how much I make because it changes from day to day. But if you have a good day, you spend half on your family and keep the other half for tomorrow. If you waste everything today, and tomorrow there is nothing, then what will you do?

“There are risks to doing this, but it is better than doing nothing. You can’t expect God to protect you. You can’t say, ‘God, God, please keep me safe’. You have to think about it yourself. At the end of the day you need to buy a carton of milk and drink it, so that you stay healthy. And sometimes people come to give vaccinations.

“We don’t want to be thieves, pickpockets or muggers. We would rather do this.”