A team of 15 moves around Panjim collecting empty cartons and cardboards keeping the city clean and a boost to the recycling effort
Cartons and cardboards give them their daily bread. Theypick these from the shops and offices for free around Panjim on a daily basisand sell the bundles in the evening. They earn their living by keeping the cityclean and adding their mite to the recycling effort. Nobody knows them but theyare around us doing their job silently.
“We are 15 families living at Betim,” says Mutthu Hadapadwho along with his father Yallappa and mother Basamma makes his living bycollecting throw-away cartons and cardboards from the shops and offices in thecapital. Each family member earns between Rs 100-200 a day during the monsoonand even more in summers. “The shopkeepers know us and are kind enough to handoverthe trash free,” says Basamma who has to oblige sometimes by cleaning the shopsor offices in exchange to the favour.
“We cross the ferry and reach Panjim at 10 am each morningfrom Betim. During the day we keep collecting, bringing and piling the stockson a footpath near Udyog Bhavan. At around 7 pm we sell these to four dealers –Lalloo, Ram Milan, Kumar and Maruti, who bring their vans to take it away,”explains Yallappa who is into carton trading business for the past 10 years. Hegets Rs 2 per kilo after selling and his only investment is ‘time’ andexpenditure is ‘walking’ around the city.
There are around 15individuals who are in this business – Ravi, Mahadevi, Basavva, Nilamma,Sangamma, Savithri, Tipamma, Sharanamma, Yamanamma, Danamma, Girija, Prashant,Shashamma, Anjalani, Mahesh all originally from Karnataka. Every membercollects 50 kilos on an average every day. They have a barter system and fourpersons sell their lot to one of the agents, thus covering 16 persons with fouragents. They all scatter during the day to different parts of the city butgather near Udyog Bhavan in the evening.
Mutthu introducesmany others like him. One of the carton pickers is 30-year-old Basavva KarkeshaSulibai who left her original place 10 years ago to come to Goa in search ofmasonry work. She did masonry work for sometime before switching over to cartoncollecting as that job was paying more. “Whoever goes first gets the cartons.We have no fixed areas for collection. We are a team of friendly workers whocollect the waste without competing with each other,” she says. These 15families live at Gavaliwada in Betim in a slum paying Rs 700 each as monthlyrent.
Monsoons are ‘dry’for those who cannot go out in the rains to pick up the cartons. “If thecartons get wet, they fetch less price, half-the-price, to be precise, so wetake care to keep them dry,” says Mutthu the only among them who owns aweighing scale.
Back home in Hadapad,Mutthu failed in SSC four years ago and joined his parents in Goa, soon after.Unlike his counterparts, he is well versed in the local Konkani and Hindi andcan read and write in English, apart from his mother tongue Kannada. “I spendRs 100 on food and save half of my earning for my sister’s wedding,” he shareshis immediate plans before leaving to start his last round.
