A Kid-Run Landfill

The landfill receives waste for free. The kids running it get money in exchange for collecting waste and selling it.

To cut a long story short, this business community is governed by particular rules under the “money-for-garbage” slogan. 

Currently controlled by the Syrian opposition, the landfill is a state-owned land and the property of the Syrian regime. 

Over time, this 1-square-killometer piece of land was turned into a landfill after becoming unsuitable for agriculture.

Whoever looks at such a vast area would be unable to identify its actual size because it seems endless with piles and mountains of waste materials are scattered as far as the eye could see. The nasty smell never abandons the dump.

The closer one gets to the place, the sharper is the nasty smell caught by their noses even with tens of kilometers separating between them and the landfill.

It only takes you a second to be feel that this smell will get into your nostrils and stay there forever; indeed, it is both overpowering and pungent.

The evacuees residing nearby have come up with a solution for this offensive odor; that is, they set up their tents on the north and west sides of the landfill so that wind can blow up the odor in the reverse direction, away from the tents.

The quantity of waste being brought to the landfill increases day by day, with the place being a central dump for “Al-Bab city, Al-Ra’yi, and the neighboring villages such as Akhtarin, Susinbat, Al-Numan, Sosyan, Aulan, and Hezwan” and each and every corner of such areas are controlled by the Syrian pro-opposition factions.

Garbage trucks collect the waste from these areas and transport it to the landfill where the kids are waiting to start searching for something of value.

Rules governing work in the landfill are as follows

After spending a day with Sa’eed, we surely realized everything is going according to a plan.

Nothing here occurs at random; probably work is the only organized activity going on amid the piles of garbage and the randomly-erected tents scattered everywhere around the area.

Landfill laborers reported the following rules to be governing work there:

• No outsiders allowed! Only residents from the area are allowed to work at the landfill.
• Early birds are given the privilege of searching everywhere they want.
• No certificate of good behavior is required to apply to work at the landfill. No instance of dispute between workers has ever been reported.
• Family heads supervise the work. Each family has a person responsible for managing their work.
• Overpricing is prohibited. All workers made a list of the prices of all saleable items they could find. No one sells below the market (i.e., offers prices lower than their colleagues) to negatively affect the market.
• The larger the quantity of copper and aluminum a worker can find, the more competent he becomes. 
• Wearing a piece of cloth on the face is optional rather than mandatory. Sa’eed refused to have his face covered with it and accounted for this preference.  

Why do workers put pieces of cloth on their faces?

Either black, red or green — the color of the cloth makes no difference and it is often cut off from old clothes turned into a face mask.

Wearing such a piece of cloth is a preventive measure to protect kids against leishmaniasis and the bites of sand flies, small blood-sucking insects. 

Asked why he refuses to wear a piece of cloth on his face, Sa’eed replied that it prevents him from exchanging some chitchat with his coworkers and that he is not afraid of the sand fly’s bites.

A bite from this insect produces a cutaneous ulcer. The infection is also known as Aleppo Boil, Baghdad Boil, or Jericho Boil and its medical term is leishmaniasis. It is the chief enemy of both the landfill workers and the residents living nearby. The insect grows in dumps and open sewage. 

Al-Bab Health Center, the nearest health facility to the landfill, receives around 30 biting cases on a daily basis.

The symptoms of such a cutaneous disease usually appear weeks after the person is bitten, in the form of small and big red spots and ulcers on the skin which usually grow larger and take a very long time to heal leaving behind a disfiguring scar or lesion.

According to the World Health Organization, over 40,000 new instances of leishmaniasis infection are reported annually in Idlib, north Hama, and rural Aleppo alone, making this one of the worst-affected areas in Syria. 

A Red Cross spokeswoman pointed out that the cases of leishmaniasis in Syria in 2017 exceeded 150,000, more than 50,000 of which were detected in Aleppo alone. 

In 2019, with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), WHO and its partner implemented one of the first large-scale leishmaniasis prevention, control and treatment projects reaching approximately 1.25 million people in north-western parts of Syria.

The infliction did not prevent residents there from working at the landfill because, as one of them emphasized, “money talks.”

Break time is probably the only time throughout the day during which the workers take the piece of cloth off their faces to have lunch. 

We accompanied Sa’eed into his tent.

He went inside and came out carrying in his hand bread wrapped up in a plastic bag. 

Workers eat bread — actually much bread all day long — to be able to satisfy hunger.

Smoke hazes hang over every corner of the landfill as a result of the burning fires.

But do not be fooled by such smoke; because it indicates no cooking being done over there.

Smoke billows into air as a result of burning garbage or for heating purposes.

Lighting fire is of special importance specially that the tents are supplied with neither electricity nor water. 

“My father makes our family’s necessary purchases from Al-Bab market once per month,” Sa’eed said.

Sa’eed finished eating his bread so quickly; then, he carried the iron device he uses in digging and resumed work as the sun was about to sink below the horizon.

Now, after a long day of hard work

The first car which buys the kids’ saleable items arrived at the landfill at sunset.

The driver started to call the kids over to gather around the car using a loud speaker so that they could sell the items they found during the day.

Ahmed, the 35-year-old driver, regularly shows up at the landfill coming from rural Idlib to buy the kids’ “goods”.

“Kids often find aluminum cans, batteries, plastic pieces, copper, and stale bread,” Ahmed explained.

He buys one kilo of plastics for SYP130 (equal to a few pennies); one kilo of copper for SYP3500 (equal to USD12); and one kilo of stale bread for SYP100.

After he buys the items kids find, Ahmed, in turn, sells metals to an Idlib-based foundry and stale bread to animal feed stores.

Sa’eed sold his items at SYP500 that day; that is, less than $2, yet, he is still luckier than many other workers who could find nothing at all.

Working as a landfill worker tests patience. A worker may end up a whole day without finding any saleable article; and in this case, he returns to his tent feeling disappointment yet hoping the next day he will be luckier.  

Experiencing such setbacks does not discourage a worker from proceeding with digging for the valuable items amid the valueless garbage. 

Before saying goodbye to Sa’eed, we asked him: “what do you wish to be when you grow up?” “I wish we have a house of our own,” he replied concisely.