| 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
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