Waste Management

Last month, I followed a hunch down to Ghana to research an organization called “Trashy Bags.” A group of sixty women collect plastic trash bags from the streets of Accra and turn them into recycled accessories ranging from simple handbags and toiletry organizers to change purses and even kitchen aprons.

I’ve struggled, as most first year Peace Corps volunteers do, with not only starting a project, but finding something that inspires me as much as it inspires my community counterparts. While some volunteers find solace in soak pits and community gardens, I’ve been drowning myself in the local language and culture, while patiently waiting for a project more creative to present itself.

Only now, at the year mark, do I have the confidence in my relationships, language and integration to feel like I can go out, have some semblance of blending in, and start a “dooni dooni” project. That being, a lifestyle change that I set as an example, seeing it catch on by people who feel capable of doing so, and having that action stay sustainable until after I am long gone.

For the past six months, I have worked closely with a tailor to learn how to cut and sew complets, dresses and handbags. I started off on his grandfather’s antique foot peddle machine watched by the other tailors as they snickered at me trudging along, fighting with the machine to hem a straight seam. Recently, however, I’ve graduated to the better machines, gaining trust amongst even the tailor association heads who frequent my “sewing station” tucked back in the market place which is barren during the days of the week until Sunday market day when it booms with children and women’ selling various goods.

Before arriving on this continent I was told that Africa’s 'flower' was the plastic bag. “You’ll see it everywhere, just prepare yourself.” Imprinted on my subconscious, that comment is finally taking shape as a possible project. Only, instead of stopping to smell the roses, I’m picking them up off the ground of my village, washing them and sewing them into stuff. Litter is carelessly scattered everywhere, which originally lead me to think that it would be difficult to convince Malians to pick up the trash on their own streets, so I set out one day and just started picking up plastic water bags as a sort of social experiment. I went only as far as my block when I had to turn around and get another receptacle to fill up. Within minutes I had children following me with their own trash bags, pointing to areas where I could get more while women even brought me their own collections from inside their concessions. I was impressed by the community’s receptiveness to cleaning up.

That morning, I washed the trash in alternating buckets of soap and bleach, lay them out to dry on a reed mat in my concession and took them over to the tailor’s to experiment. That day I made a small purse, a book bag and a dress.

Upon seeing my creations, Malians had varying reactions. Mostly they were very impressed by the book bag, women wanted to buy the dress and children were screaming for me to make them one. Ok, not exactly what I was going for, but it’s starting a conversation. One of the tailors asked, “Alima, why are you picking up trash when you can just buy plastic and make things out of that?” As I started to speak, a women sitting in front of my machine, waiting for her complet to be finished interjected, “this opens people’s minds about picking up dirty trash, buying plastic does not help people.”

Ok, so the ideas are there, Malians do not want to live in their own filth and are not shocked by people picking up trash, even if that person is white. I am still in the VERY early stages of this project as an income generating activity, but my smallest success was measured this morning when I returned to my concession. Three children were at my front door waiting for me. They each held out a trash bag full of empty water sachets they had picked up from around town. “Here Alima, you can make something out of this.”