SHE knows the sound of hunger when she hears one.
It’s the sound her youngest daughter, Rudo, would always make in 2020 after drought hit her maize field.
At the same time, COVID-19 robbed her of the piece jobs that had sustained her life.
Another sound she knows is that of a 2-litre Mazoe bottle crunching under her foot at 5:13am on Gutu’s Chisevedza and Gutu Garage roads.
But that crunch is different now.
It’s the sound of school fees.
Zvinei Tichafa (46), a mother of two, is Gutu’s most unlikely entrepreneur.
Her office is the ditch behind Mpandawana bus terminus.
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Her inventory is what the rest of the town throws away: empty polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic containers and cans.
And in a small town where formal jobs vanished years ago, she’s building something that looks a lot like a sustainable livelihood.
Two years before the COVID-19 lockdown, Tichafa lost her husband to a mining accident in Zvishavane, Midlands province.
And when the lockdown kicked in, it snuffed the life out of her US$5 per day market-cleaning job.
The World Food Programme trucks stopped coming.
“We would eat porridge once a day,” she says.
“Rudo was eight years. She started calling me ‘Mama tofa nezhara’ [Mom, we are dying of hunger].”
Then she noticed some boys at Mapondera bottle store who were getting a few dollars out of selling recyclable plastics.
They would get US$5 for a sack of empty scud containers.
“I thought: If the boys can do it, why not me? But I was ashamed. In our culture, a mother doesn’t pick in the bins.”
Shame lasted three days.
On day four, she woke up at 4am, tied a Zambia cloth on her head, and walked out of the house.
On that day, she walked along the residential areas’ roads.
She collected 7kg PET plastic, 3kg of empty cans and earned US$11, which she used to buy meal-mealie, cooking oil and a candle.
She sold her findings to a middle person, who buys at a cheaper price.
Rudo, her daughter, ate twice that night.
“That’s when trash stopped being trash,” Tichafa says.
“People say it’s dirty work,” she says, flattening an empty can of Fanta fizzy juice with a stone.
“I say it’s clean money. No one can fire me. No one can steal my pension.”
She’s not alone. Tichafa organised 12 other women into the Gutu community group.
They share trolleys, negotiate better prices and rotate early-morning routes to avoid fights.
Currently they are planning to register a co-operative.
Tichafa learned three things: Shredded PET sells for three times more than whole bottles; Cans can be sold to artisans making pots and radios; and, data matters, where weighing and recording every load builds credit history.
“We cut out the middleman,” Tichafa says.
“Last month, I made US$340. My best ever.”
That US$340 did three things: paid fees for the whole year for her son Tinashe, who is in Form 2; bought school uniforms for all her two children; and, bought a gas stove.
“Now, no more smoke from firewood will enter my lungs.”
They started a savings club where every member contributes US$5 and month.
In December, they buy and share uniforms and Christmas clothes.
What Gutu residents throw away, Tichafa keeps a notebook not for names, but to keep track of weights for accountability purposes.
“Gutu throws away more than two tonnes of plastic and cans a month,” she says.
“I see it. Plastics from water bottles, Cascade drinks and cooking oil.
“All of it is money for mothers like me.”
Although the 46-year-old woman has been successful in picking empty plastics and cans in the past five years, she feels her job would be better if she has a plastic shredder or plastic granulator.
The machines helps breakdown waste or scrap plastic into smaller, uniform pieces, thereby shrinking the physical space of bulky plastic trash, making it much simpler and cheaper to store and transport.
“I wish we could have a plastic shredder which helps to breakdown plastics into granules and make it simple to transport them in bulk to recyclers at a better price,” Tichafa said.
“At the moment, we the sell plastic at US$1,30 per kilogramme as compared to US$1,50 when they are shredded.”
Environment Management Agency (EMA) Masvingo provincial manager Milton Muusha was happy to note that as they celebrate this month of July for the plastic free July Global Movement that encourages everyone to say no to single use of plastics and place zero waste by reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering resources in every small action counts.
“With the current challenges in waste management we have been facing over the past years we are pleased to note that as a province we are noting a significant improvement in waste management.
“Various individuals and community-based organisations have come on board with regards to promoting the recycling sector,” he said.
“To date we have over eight community-based organisations in Gutu district that are registered with EMA and are receiving support from the agency.
“We are pleased to note that various women and youth groups are now engaging in waste collection and sorting for sale to recyclers in Masvingo and even in Harare.”
Added Muusha: “As EMA, we have supported these groups with market linkages, training on waste recycling and technical guidance on waste trading.
“These groups are also playing a key role in the achievement of the zero waste agenda were all the waste should remain circulating in the production cycle.”
Gutu Rural District Council chief executive officer Alexander Mutembwa applauded the job being done by the waste plastic pickers within the residential area and the town at large, saying they help in cleaning the environment and also stopping the spread of diseases.
“Personally, I have seen heaps of their empty plastics. As council, we are very happy with their work as they help clean the town and put the waste into good use [recycling],” Mutembwa said.
“We have our own refuse compactor vehicle which we use to collect waste and as they [waste pickers] are assisting or helping the council in cleaning the environment, they will be eradicating the breeding of parasites.”
A climate change and environmental specialist at the University of Zimbabwe, Achieford Mhondera, said: “These litter pickers are unsung eco-heroes of our generation who play an important role in urban environmental protection.
“They prevent blockages in drainage systems that can trigger flooding and spread of pollutants into waterways.
“Their informal recycling, sorting and selling plastics contribute to a circular economy through reducing material sent to landfills and lowers the demand for virgin plastics and energy required for producing new plastics, cutting associated emissions.”
Added Mhondera: “Beyond this, their work curbs health hazards from stagnant water facilitated by the accumulation of unchecked litter and this supports cleaner public spaces that discourages further littering.
Before Tichafa’s group, 80% of PET containers ended up in drains or burned. Now it’s 50%. Malaria and diarrhoea cases dropped because drains now flow.
But the work is heavy.
Tichafa’s hands are scarred from broken glass.
Rainy season means fewer cans and more illness.
Stigma, as well, lingers.
“Some still call us marombe — mad people,” she says, “until their child needs fees and I lend them US$10.”
This is what sustainability means. Yet they doesn’t see it as sustainability, but a money spinning project.
She points to her scale.
“This is my title deed,” she says.
“Every kilogramme I put here, I’m buying my children out of poverty.”
Tinashe wants to be a nurse.
Rudo, now 13, tops her class in mathematics.
On Saturdays, they both help her sort out the plastics and cans.
Not because they must, but because Tichafa insists they know where the money comes from.
“I tell them: The world will call you names if you’re poor. So we pick up what it drops, and we make it value.”
At sunset, Tichafa walks home past the same ditches she worked at dawn.
The ground is cleaner, save for a few new plastic containers and cans thrown around after she had gone past.
Behind her, Gutu’s water tower catches the last light.
She adjusts the empty sack on her shoulder.
Tomorrow it will be heavy again.
And that, to Tichafa, is the weight of hope.
