Waste Picker Hamza: They Act Like We Don’t Exist on the Streets

* Photos: Evrim Kepenek - bianet

Click to read the article in Turkish

We are in Firuzağa Neighborhood in Cihangir, İstanbul. This street, with its cafes, is normally full of life and people. But, it is now quiet due to "coronavirus." While watching the street, I see a waste picker with his cart. 

I am calling behind him. He takes off his earphones. I tell him that I want to have an interview with him. He smiles and says, "What can I tell you?". With that sentence of his, our interview starts:

- What is your name?

Hamza

- Do you collect garbage?

Yes. Cardboards, paper boxes, plastics, tin cans... I am collecting all types of disposable garbage.

- How many hours a day do you work? How much do you earn?

12 hours... I start at seven in the morning. 20 kurush per kilo... It changes from day to day. Sometimes 50 lira, sometimes 60 or 70...

- Where do you go to collect garbage?

To Cihangir, Beyoğlu, Tarlabaşı...

- Where are you from?

I am from Aksaray province.

- When did you come to İstanbul?

I was seven when we came here. I have four siblings. It has been 20 years or so.

- Where do you live?

We could not make a living as a family here. We have fallen apart. I have long been living here and there. Since I took up this job, I have been staying in a room in Kasımpaşa.

- Then, you live in a crowded place, I guess?

Not exactly, there are 7-8 of us. And we don't pay for it. Our boss pays it for us. Everyone living there is waste pickers. We leave the room at seven o'clock and return at midnight. No one sees each other. I can say that my conditions are better than before. There are several people working like me, like a thousand, maybe two-three thousand... A lot...

- What do you think while strolling along the streets and doing your job?

I think of nothing. I focus on my work.

- What do you listen with your earphones?

I am having them so that I don't have to listen to people's noise. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I talk to someone on the phone.

'I have to do this job'

- How do you protect yourself against corona?

I don't. If we will die, then we will die. There is nothing to do about it. I am afraid of nothing. What should I fear? I only have God. I have to do this job. There is no other job that I can do. No one employs me. I am not educated, either. Instead of us, they employ others at low wages.

- Do you have a dream, then? What would you like to have or do in your life?

I don't have a dream. I don't dream of anything. Nothing whatsoever... What can I dream of anyway? Dreaming is like a fairytale. What dream am I supposed to have? It will not come true anyway. If you say a dream, then you think that it will come true; but, I don't think that anything will happen.

'Every street has different garbage'

- Are there people treating you badly on the street?

Of course, there are. But I don't lend an ear to them. There are so impertinent people, you know... We cannot live if we listen to them. We give an answer when necessary, but very little.

We have problems with the garbage collectors of the municipality. They come in fours and fives. We cannot do anything.

- Are there any differences in terms of garbage?

I know everywhere like the back of my hand, I know each and every street. The garbage of each street is different from the other. We pick plastic bottles on the streets with houses, but collect more garbage if there are bars and cafes in the vicinity. It brings more money, I mean. But, it is not like that nowadays, everywhere is closed.

Even our garbage is different than that of the rich. We pick all kinds of food and drink packages from the bins of the rich while there are more oil pins in poorer neighborhoods.

The garbage depends on the place. You can pick a lot of garbage from here, but if you go to the upper neighborhood, there is even more. There are plastic bottles the most. I collect everything, nylon, iron, paper and all...

The rich can eat and drink everything, but what can the poor eat and drink? Even the garbage of the rich and poor is different from each other.

- What else would you do for a living if not this job?

I can take up any job, I can do everything that I am capable of.

'İmamoğlu said everything would be alright, but...'

- You cannot work if a curfew is declared...

Yes, then we will go and sit at the store. But, not long... I cannot go to my home town, either. It costs a lot to go to the home town. If you don't work, the man doesn't give you your bread and water. He tells you 'You work yourself and earn yourself.' He tells you 'If you don't bring garbage, the I won't look after you.'

- Waste collectors have been temporarily banned from working in Ankara, they are provided with housing there. They will not do this job for a while, would you like to have something like that here?

Of course, it will be good. It will still do if we don't work. Our state does its part in Ankara. How nice...

- If Metropolitan Mayor of İstanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu were here now with us, what would you like to tell him?

You said everything would be alright, but everything is the same, I would tell him. The poor is getting poorer while no one can say anything to the rich.

'Some people close their mouths when they see us'

- What would you like our readers to know about you? What would you like to tell them?

I don't know? It is the first time that I give an interview to you. No one asks, no one cares... No one comes to you and asks 'Do you have a problem?'. They act like we don't exist on the streets.

As if they were clean themselves, they close their noses, their mouths when they see us. I wouldn't do it anyway if I didn't have to. We are all humans, it can happen to you, too. We do it because we have to. We don't steal or anything. They even begrudge the money we earn, they begrudge it to us... (EMK/SD)