Dirt is good: Meet Nairobi's garbage millionaires

Garbage has turned out to be very profitable for Stephen Kambi.
The 31-year-old is the MCA for Dandora II, but before he plunged into politics, he rummaged through the Dandora dumpsite for four years to take care of his young wife.
“Garbage is a source of livelihood for many successful people in Dandora and the surrounding areas. We come from humble backgrounds and the only way out was to scavenge at the dumpsite,” says the politician, a financial beneficiary of the 2,000 tonnes of waste generated daily by Nairobi’s over four million people. 

A portion of that waste ends up at the Dandora dumpsite, which has been churning out millionaires from the city’s almost dysfunctional waste disposal and management system.

Indeed, unknown to snooty Nairobians who turn up their noses when a refuse truck rattles by, the 30-acre Dandora landfill has bred tycoons whose dirty and tattered attires camouflage unbelievable riches.
Take Susan Waithera for instance. The 37-year-old sold her land in the village and made it to the city 18 years ago with just Sh5,000. She made Dandora dumpsite her base, and it’s from there that she ventured into the ‘dirty,’ waste-sorting business after failing to transit to secondary school.
Waithera is now a proud owner of a business which in a bad month fetches her about Sh2 million, as university graduates look for low-paying butt-on-a-seat soft jobs like social media marketing and ‘online customer optimisation.’
Waithera lives in her own house in Dandora, has rental business premises, as well as a canter truck and pick-up. Predictably, Waithera drives to and from work in an old nondescript Toyota Noah ‘family car’, which she uses to run all her businesses.

See also: How rogue clinics dump foetuses and hospital waste in Dandora, Ruai and Eastleigh areas

 

“I started collecting plastics, selling them to dealers and saving part of my daily earnings. In no time, I was collecting and buying from others who ventured into the dumpsite before I came to the city,” exlains Waithera on how it all began.
When she first walked into the landfill, it was a complete gangster kingdom run by vicious armed thugs who fought for territorial control. “It was open to a specific and very tough breed of men. Women would be raped and gang fights were common, but I dared to venture and scavenge there,” she recalls.
The business, which she runs with her husband, has 10 employees. She deals in plastics and metallic items, which she buys for Sh30,000 daily and resells for a handsome profit.
Not far from Waithera’s ‘territory’ at the site, is the cagey and elusive Waititu Ng’ang’a. Ng’ang’a owns a chain of rental houses in the neighbouring Korogocho slums, and has been at the site since 1995, amassing wealth that he’s not keen to talk about. Instead, he prefers to talk passionately about his lucrative pig-rearing business at the edge of the dumpsite and how much wealth his rivals have accumulated over time.
“At home, I keep free range chickens that produces eggs for the local market,” says Ng’ang’a with a chuckle, probably aimed at concealing his true worth.
During the interview, Ng’ang’a occasionally refers to colleagues, detailing their assets like rental houses and matatus.
“There is a woman here who makes so much money that it cannot fit in her purse,” jokes the 45-year-old who has been nicknamed ‘Koffi Annan’ due to his ability to reconcile rival cartels feuding over control of the waste site.
Waithera and Ng’ang’a are some of the silent millionaires whose earning power could be eroded should the Dandora dumpsite be relocated.
“The government should build a recycling plant here so that we can continue eking out a living,” says Ng’ang’a, a father of three, oblivious of the side-effects of wading through waste from hotels, restaurants, industries, the airport, hospitals, abattoirs and residential areas.
Peter Mburu who has eked a living there for over two decades claims the site was more lucrative before it was invaded by cartels. “The trucks are booked by the moneyed people and after getting what they want, they leave the remnants to us,” he laments.
The current active cartels include 41 Base, Jobless, Machizi, Genge and Waybridge. Like the legendary slain Mohawk lion, other cartels have since been overthrown and kicked out of the area. They include PLO, Mau Mau, Githeka, Githingo, Kamjesh and Mungiki. Not surprisingly, perennial fights over control of the infamous site are common.
Mama Omubo has also made money from garbage. Despite owning a fleet of matatus plying the Dandora route, and running other side businesses, she remains put at the lucrative dumpsite. “You will rarely get to differentiate them (millionaires) from us, but their investments go beyond the collection and resale of recycled waste,” says Ramadhan Omari who works at the site.
According to Omari, 25, some of the matatus operating in Korogocho, Kariobangi, Dandora, Githurai, Kahawa West, Kasarani and Huruma are owned by people who started or still work at the dumpsite.

John Maina, who attributes his success to the dumpsite, owns a taxi, a spare parts shop and a cooking gas supply outlet.

“I started off by searching for valuable items, then bought weighing machines and started buying the waste from my friends,” narrates the 32-year-old businessman. Today, Maina does the garbage business part-time.
But as windfalls are wont to go, Victor Otieno claims that some millionaires, like one only identified as ‘Condru,’ waste their wealth on alcohol and women.
“Three died in separate cases while binging. Others spend their time chewing miraa around Dandora and fantasizing about the good life that went of the days gone by,” he says.

See also: How rogue clinics dump foetuses and hospital waste in Dandora, Ruai and Eastleigh areas

When The Nairobian caught up with ‘Condru’, who once owned a car, at the dumpsite, we found a man who is now reportedly mentally ill and leads a solitary life.
“I have no story to share,” he dismissed us. “I don’t want to talk to anybody. I just want to be left alone,” he said with finality.