Rubbish dump gives IDPs economic means

Every day around 1 p.m. it’s like the Muslim festival of Eid and the Christian festival of Christmas rolled into one big present for the children who live next to the main Baghdad city dump in the district of Taji. That’s when a green garbage truck usually shows up with trash from a US civilian and military compound known as the “green zone” in downtown Baghdad. The truck disgorges colourful, American magazines and unopened food packets; stale, half-eaten cans of Pringles and worn-out tennis shoes - a sharp contrast to the meagre orange peels and plastic bottles that make up most Iraqi trash. “I look for sweets and pictures in magazines,” Delal Hanlar, a 10-year-old told IRIN as she scavenged from the lucrative piles of black plastic trash bags, an embroidered black headscarf covering her hair. “My family sell the magazines,” she added. For these IDP children, the dump has meant they can contribute to feeding themselves and their families. Teenager Ahmed Mohammed hands a grimy but unopened chocolate energy bar to his brother Haidar, who gleefully rips open the shiny, gold wrapper with his teeth. It’s Mohammed's job along with the other children from families who live near the dump to poke through the bags to find valuable things to sell. But many of the children play with the new garbage, finding some edible cheese spread and vegetable crackers from a US military meal-ready-to-eat (MRE) package, and orange crackers with peanut butter that turns to crumbs when the plastic package is opened. In thrifty Iraq, trash has always been sold to shepherds who use the vegetable parings and stale bread to feed their goats, sheep and cows. The new loads go for up to 15 times the price, however, about US $15 paid directly to the driver. "Shepherds trust in God to keep the animals from eating anything that’s not good for them, including the numerous plastic bags," Jema Zair Hassan, who owns an assortment of animals that eats the rubbish, told IRIN. “This is very rich as food for animals, that’s the most important thing,” Hassan said, explaining why he pays for the load being dumped in front of cows and sheep being tended by his children and neighbours. “But sometimes we find other things like shoes and electrical cords that we can sell,” he added. Before US-led troops rolled into Iraq in April, the rubbish pickers used to look for garbage trucks from the wealthy neighbourhoods of Mansour and Jermuk. Those trash bags are all but forgotten now. “American garbage is better than Iraqi garbage, because everything is available to them,” rubbish hauler, Raid Hekmat, told IRIN. “Even the Iraqi Army had much less.” Rubbish haulers estimated they bring 10 trucks per day, each carrying one and a half mt, to the dump. Once the children have gone through the rubbish piles, families set them on fire, sending up a toxic stench. Smouldering trash piles are less likely to spread disease, and rodents won’t move into them, Hassan said. Many of the families said they moved to the garbage dump because they had no food or water for their animals. Ironically enough, there’s no water or sanitation facilities at the dump either - women carry jugs of water on their heads from a water tap at a fuel station across the busy highway. Hassan, the shepherd, brought his family from Missan district east of Baghdad just five months ago, complaining that he had no land on which to graze his animals, and his neighbours had told him to move. Sadoun Ali, aged 40, who moved his wife and six children to the dump is more bitter about his precarious situation. The former prisoner of war during the Iraq-Iran war cannot believe he now lives in a mud hut on the side of the dump. “We live like we’re in the Middle Ages here. Nothing is available to us - not even kerosene, which keeps on going up in price, or water. Our country is rich in oil, so why are we here?” Another man told IRIN that the rubbish left by the US civil and military officials gave everyone a chance to make money pointing to a late-model sedan parked nearby and explaining that his neighbour bought it with profits from selling shoes and other things found in the refuse. A family putting together a shelter of metal girders and canvas believed they would continue to survive with a monthly food ration card and money made from collecting valuable garbage. Like every Iraqi, Hassush Ghali continues to receive a food ration that feeds his family almost for the whole month under the former United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme. Like many others who have recently set up shop near the dump, Ghali decided to move to the outskirts of Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein, just because he was not previously allowed to do so. “I have to find a way to make a living. If I had money would I live here?” Ghali asked. “But I have three hens and a rooster. We’ll be able to use the garbage to live, so we’ll be OK.”