Today, it is clear in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso that women and children go from neighborhood to neighborhood to collect used water sachets in the hope of making money by selling them. This phenomenon was born and is growing thanks in particular to the establishment of processing and recovery units for this plastic waste in the city of Sya.
They see gold where others see trash. They are these children, generally young, or women of the elderly. They are frequently seen during festive or unhappy ceremonies such as weddings, baptisms or funerals, making these spaces clean, perhaps in spite of themselves. In spite of themselves, because they set themselves the task of collecting all the bags of used water that they come across with the primary objective of reselling them.
They choose these places because there is generally a large group of people there who, after using water sachets, dispose of them in a haphazard manner. They are also found on rubbish heaps with all the dangers that go with them. Equipped with bags of used rice or corn, they search every nook and cranny to be able to fill them with these bags, because the amount of money they are aiming for depends on it. After their passage, these places are literally cleared of all water bags.
They are then stored at their level in order to collect the maximum number of sachets to subsequently convert them into cash. Indeed, certain units specialize in transforming plastic bags into objects of almost all kinds. We can cite, for example, the making of handbags, shoes or bags for shopping, from these sachets. After that, the marketing process begins. Traders obtain these finished products and make them available to the end consumer. We therefore notice that it is a whole process, from the collection of plastic bags to the sale of derived products. Anything that rids our living environments of these polluting objects, while generating income through the creation of jobs with the establishment of these processing units.
Zenabou SANA/Intern
