Sewage bags pose health threat to clueless buyers

Women wash carry bags in Ngong' River. The carry bags are collected from dumpsites and rewashed in the filthy river, dried, ironed and re-packaged for sale to markets where traders use them to pack groceries for customers. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

Every garbage site in Mukuru kwa Reuben slum has its uses. So too, do the filthy streams of raw sewer slicing through the makeshift shacks in this sprawling informal settlement, which houses armies of Nairobi city’s labour force. 

Six years ago, a sizeable number of women were earning their keep retailing polythene bags, which ended up clogging up the city’s waterways and garbage dumps. Then government banned their usage and for some months there was panic. But not anymore.

Some enterprising women have found a way of earning a living from discarded biodegradable carrier bags. The women have been scavenging around the nearby markets and dumpsites collecting the discarded carrier bags.

The collectors meticulously empty whatever trash is in the bags and then head to the highly polluted Ngong’ River, whose waters have since surrendered its natural colour and now wears different hues of black-grey or dirty-blue depending on its neighbourhood.  

Our team visited some of the spots, where a group of women had congregated for the daily wash. Like unconventional baptists, the barefooted women wash off muck from the rejects and convert sackfuls of their colourful carrier bags along Ngong River.

“We wake up early to collect the carrier bags. Then we wash and sort them according to sizes and colours before packing them in bundles, ” Jane Sishia, one of the women said, adding that in one day, they collect more than 500 bags discarded in the slum.

Sishia explained that she joined her sister in February. Her sister was already an expert of sorts,  having immersed herself in this business in 2017 when the Government banned polythene bags. Sishia said she was forced out of employment in Industrial Area last year due to effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Like Nairobi river, Ngong’ river that cuts through the Industrial Area and slums contains huge amounts of garbage, including raw human waste. This pollution is further compounded by industrial effluents have turned the water black.

This compromised water is used to wash the carrier bags, after which they are prepared and sent back to markets around the city.

After ‘refurbishment’ each bag now retails for a shilling. But in a country where a shilling has no value, Sishia said the trick is in dealing with volumes.

As such, the bags are packed in bundles of 10 and sold at Sh10 per bundle. Other heavy duty carrier bags fetch a relatively higher price of Sh6 each. These too are sold in bulk and the smallest is a bunch of 10. 

This trade is not carried around the river but far away in the food markets where traders desperately need bags to pack goods.

Investigations by The Standard established that recycled bags are finding their back into your homes since some traders buy them at cheaper prices.

There is ready market for the bags in Muthurwa, Wakulima, and Gikomba markets where the bags are used to package second hand clothes, fruits, vegetables and the small sizes packing miraa.

Public Health Expert Collins Lando says by using water from the polluted river to wash the carrier bags, and then use them to carry foodstuff afterwards, people can easily contract serious diseases.

“There are high chances of contamination if the recycled bags are used to keep foodstuff. It can lead to an outbreak of cholera or typhoid because the rivers in Nairobi are polluted with all kind of waste,” he warned.