Bamako market
recycling at Bamako market
Bamako market
When people don’t have very much, they try not to throw anything away. They use their imagination and skill to turn old, worn-out things into new objects.
The market at Bamako, Mali’s capital city, is famous for selling all sorts of scrap metal. They also sell loads of useful, ingenious things that have been made from scrap.
So, do you think you could turn a car into a plough?
"There is a large market area in Bamako. All sorts of scrap metal is collected from all over the city and brought here where it is sorted and sold to specialist dealers. Everything from car parts to railways, is brought here.
Some of the smaller scrap is sold simply as scrap but a lot of it goes directly for recycling. There are workshops everywhere in this area, all making different items out of recycled metal: trunks, wheelbarrows, braziers, and farming implements are just a few of the things they make.
The recycling market has been here for more than 20 years. Recycling began in the rural areas but now it has become more commercial.
For the rural people, all their ploughs and hoes, and other farming implements are made from scrap metal so through this recycling market a car from Europe, say a Renault or a Peugeot, could end up being used to make ploughs for a poor rural farmer in the smallest, most distant village in Mali. When a car is imported it is used for as long as possible and when it can no longer be driven it's dismantled and every last piece of it is used to make something else.
Most of the objects made from recycled metal are traditional items, but if someone has a good imagination and is very intelligent, he can come up with his own designs. For example, one boy from here designed an entire bicycle made from scrap metal."
Daouda Ballo, Bamako Market
Photo for Oxfam GB by Rhodri Jones
Recycling page
| Mali guide book home page | Mali virtual
journey home page
On the Line home page