Mr. Thirupathi is a scrap dealer in Bambalapitiya. His shop is located between a local salon and another beauty salon. He’s been collecting waste for nearly 8 years now.

On the 3rd of April, I went to meet Mr. Thiru, to ask him about his business of waste collecting and how he was affected by the Pandemic and the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka. The conversation began with me asking some questions such as what type of waste does he mostly get, to which he answered “we usually get plastics, paper and scrap iron but we mostly get cardboard, newspapers and wastage books.”

This was interesting since I thought scrap dealers would encourage their suppliers (who are mostly Abans men and women hoping to earn some money by selling collected waste to buy their lunch or a cup of tea) to bring in plastics. However, this isn’t the case, because plastic products such as PET bottles are light and you can’t effectively weigh it on a weighing scale and give a set reasonable price for the plastics.

So, Mr. Thiru doesn’t collect as much plastics than I hoped. However, I did get to know that there is a particular place in Bambalapitiya known as the ‘Maduwa’ which collects plastics picked up by garbage collectors.

The Covid-19 Pandemic had severely affected businesses such as Mr. Thiru’s. Firstly, collection was severely hit. The supply of scrap and waste was limited.

Since people became more aware of the use of things which could possibly let you contract the Virus, the buying and selling of newspapers sharply fell. Thus, that was one type of waste stripped off of Mr. Thiru’s collection list.

Thirupathi Stores:-

Type of waste	Buying Price (LKR) before Pandemic (2019)	Current Buying price (LKR) (2022)
Plastics	20	60
Newspaper	15	100
Scrap Iron	40	90

 

An Abans man unloading waste and scrap on to the weighing scale

Weighing newspapers

Weighing Jack in the Boxes

Photo credits: author.