By Gcina Ntsaluba
Every Thursday morning, Dr Melusi Dlamini would chat with waste pickers making their rounds through his Makhanda neighbourhood. These informal conversations would eventually spark a transformation that has redefined how his students understand environmental justice.
Dlamini, a lecturer in Rhodes University’s Department of Anthropology, was struggling to make Mary Douglas’s dense theoretical work on “matter out of place” accessible to his applied anthropology students. Those Thursday morning conversations planted a seed: the same people society renders invisible are performing essential services that keep communities functioning.
“I was trying to get students to understand this concept about things being in places they don’t belong in,” Dlamini explains. “Like waste, or sometimes how waste pickers can be seen as ‘you shouldn’t be here’ — but on Thursday, we ignore it because they’re helping us with our trash.”
The classroom revolution
Since 2022, Dlamini has taken his final-year students on weekly visits to Makhanda’s landfill site, working directly with waste pickers who have become integral to the course. What students discover consistently amazes them.
“To you and I, it’s a pile of chaos,” Dlamini says. “A waste picker will tell you that we throw this kind of trash there, we throw this kind of trash there. For them, it is segmented in such regimented ways.”
This systematic organisation reveals deep expertise that most people are unaware of. Students who have lived in Makhanda for three years discover where their waste actually goes. “When they go there, it’s mind-blowing.”
The most revolutionary aspect came when waste pickers began speaking in the classroom as experts. “You don’t have to be Professor X, Y, Z to have an understanding of saving the environment,” Dlamini emphasises.
Beyond empowerment: recognition
Dlamini avoids the language of “empowerment” when discussing his work. “They have the skills and they have the knowledge, but we just don’t listen,” he explains. “So it’s not just about empowering, but it’s about acknowledging.”
The waste pickers can discuss international climate policy and articulate environmental issues with remarkable clarity. “If you are to sit with them, they articulate the issues so well. They will tell you about COP something, something.”
Yet they face harsh realities. Safety remains their most pressing concern — competing with trucks at the landfill site, lacking protective equipment, and processing copper outside the site due to methane gas accumulation. “A lot of them have chest issues because of the gases they inhale,” Dlamini notes.
Confronting misconceptions
Dlamini challenges common assumptions that waste pickers are “dangerous” or “uneducated.” Unemployment has driven people with various educational backgrounds to the landfill site. “It’s not strange to find someone with grade 12 at the landfill site.”
More troubling is how society associates waste pickers with the materials they handle. “Because we associate them with dirt and trash, subconsciously,” he explains.
What sets Dlamini’s approach apart is his commitment to long-term relationships. Waste pickers often complain about academics who “come here, do your projects, get money from the university, graduate, and you leave.”
His annual return has built trust and mutual respect. This year, he’s working on formalising the Makhanda waste pickers movement and associating it with the university.
A model for change
Dlamini sees his work as potentially transformative beyond Makhanda. South Africa has an estimated 66,000 waste pickers, and similar challenges exist across the Global South.
“Makhanda is lucky because it’s a university town,” he reflects. He envisions other universities adopting similar approaches, creating symbiotic relationships with waste pickers in their communities.
When asked what motivates him, Dlamini’s answer is simple: “People. It’s people and it’s the connection.” Through his innovative service-learning approach, Dlamini proves that transformative education happens when universities stop talking about communities and start listening to them. “We owe them,” he concludes. “They’re the ones helping us.”
