Recycling in Skopje, with a little help from the Roma

When we first arrived, I learned where to bring our trash.  (There are dumpsters across the street from my building.)

Of course, I also wanted to know what we were supposed to do with our cans/bottles/cardboard. (There are no recycle bins near our dumpsters)

As we were walking around our neighborhood, I noticed folks going through our dumpsters, gathering plastics or cardboard that can be sold at recycling.


I observed that the Roma have developed an informal recycling system here in Skopje.

Sometimes these recyclables are gathered in carts that are attached to horse carts, sometimes the carts are attached to a motor scooter and sometimes they are attached to a bicycle/tricycle and sometimes they are pulled like a wagon and sometimes a person may carry a large garbage bag over her shoulder.   (Here are some pictures that I took from a distance so you can get the idea)

I see these carts/recyclable collectors every day as I am walking around my neighborhood.

My answer to the question of what to do with my recyclables?  I separate them from my trash, and I place them in a bag next to the big dumpsters so they are easier to retrieve.

Back home there are folks who go through dumpsters to get cans/bottles (to sell) for recycling as well, but here it seems a fairly organized (though informal/non-govermental/non-taxpayer funded) system of private individuals collecting the recyclables and selling them for a source of income.  There may be municipal or other efforts to organize recycling in Skopje (e.g., I think USAID had a project?) - but for now, in my neighborhood - this effort of collecting the recyclables (and keeping them out of landfills) is fulfilled by Roma.

(I will say we have been living the Reduce - Reuse -Recycle mantra here, and I think we are generating less trash. Things we might otherwise discard are being re-purposed or re-used (e.g., when we get think plastic containers from restaurants with our left overs - I wash those and re-use them. (the thin clear ones, like the ones you might buy cupcakes from the bakery at Publix)  Also, I wash out and use as leftover containers the thin plastic container that my yogurt comes in. I am sure that at home, when I finished the yogurt I would just toss that container into the recycle bin.  Here, I wash it out and am grateful I have another leftover container to use. I'm also more careful about what we buy and bring in to the house. When we shop I can buy only what I can carry a few blocks home and up the stairs - so I think twice before tossing an item in my cart in the first place.)

Here are a few resources you may find of interest to learn more about the Roma population here:

In this report, the Republic of Macedonia's Ministry of Labor and Social Policy details its "Strategy for the Roma in the Republic of Macedonia 2014-2020."  In it you can learn more about EU policy regarding non-discrimination and inclusion - and what the Republic of Macedonia plans to do to  improve the conditions of the Roma here: http://www.merc.org.mk/Files/Write/Documents/02310/en/Roma-Strategy-in-Macedonia-2014-2020.pdf

Here is a UNICEF report (and recommendations) about(for) the status of Roma children in Macedonia: https://www.unicef.org/ceecis/Roma_Children.pdf

This article, published around the last parliamentary election (in December 2016), includes statistics related to Roma life in Macedonia:  http://news.trust.org/item/20161209141044-hnqxa

"FEATURE-Election brings no hope to Macedonia's Roma-run "ghetto", say voters

by Matthew Ponsford | @mjponsford | Thomson Reuters Foundation

Friday, 9 December 2016 14:06 GMT
 

"Held hostage" by political leaders, residents in one of the world's only self-governed Roma municipalities want drastic change" By Matthew Ponsford
SUTO ORIZARI, Macedonia, Dec 9 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A s Sunday's election in Macedonia draws close, Amet Yashar jokes that politicians' newfound concern for his home, one of Europe's largest Roma communities, might not be wholly sincere.
Suto Orizari district, a ramshackle settlement of more than 20,000 people, in the capital Skopje is among a handful of Roma-majority municipalities in the world and one of the few places where Romanes is an official language.
But Yashar said the community, known as Shutka locally, remains largely ignored by the majority of Macedonians until political leaders venture there ahead of elections to promise jobs and material change to Suto Orizari's residents.
The settlement has existed since 1963, but many residents still lack adequate housing and connections to power, water and sewage systems, according to research by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), an international advocacy organisation.
"Before the election is the only time we're Macedonians," said the 35-year-old in his office at Iriz, an organisation that offers legal aid. "The rest of the time we're just Roma."
Suto Orizari is tucked away from the city centre behind a fortress. Its dusty streets are lined by a multicoloured mix of tin-roofed bungalows, half-built brick apartments and intricately ornamented villas.
Arriving by car from the national assembly in the tiny ex-Yugoslav republic, the pristine roads turned potholed and the occasional horse-drawn cart swerved between cars.
Despite having two elected Roma members of parliament and a Roma mayor in Suto Orizari, the Roma - as in most cities across Europe - have little real political power, rights groups say.
EUROPE'S LARGEST MINORITY
The Macedonian constitution is unique in recognising Roma by name and enshrines equality of political opportunity for Roma, along with the country's Albanian and Turkish minorities.
But Fadil Djemail, Yashar's boss and project coordinator at Iriz, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the people of Shutka are being "held hostage" by political leaders.
"For us, it does not matter who will win," said Yashar. "No matter who we vote for in this election, for the usual Roma citizens who live in Shutka, it will be the same."
Europe's 10 million Roma are the continent's largest ethnic minority.
In Macedonia, they make up almost 10 percent of the two million population, according to statistics from the Council of Europe. But there, as across the Balkans, they continue to lack basic rights to housing and public services, says the ERRC.
A 2015 survey of Roma communities across Macedonia classed half of all neighbourhoods, including Suto Orizari where 75 percent of residents are Roma, as "informal settlements", where residents lack legal land ownership or property titles.
In every Roma settlement surveyed by the ERRC, residents were either unable to connect to safe drinking water or lived in fear of being disconnected due to unaffordable costs.
Yet Suto Orizari - born after the 1963 earthquake destroyed Roma homes in the centre - defies outsiders' tag as a "slum".
Across the community in northern Skopje, Byzantine-styled mansions jut out above ornamented brick homes and yards with livestock and geese. Commerce thrives around the central market, surrounded by butchers, hairdressers, shops and offices, including the home of Romani news website 24Vakti.
Outsiders think nothing changes in Shutka, said Sali Memed, editor of 24Vakti. But there is constant development, including a high school that opened last year offering lessons in Romanes.
Since 2010, a nationwide project to privatise government land and legalise housing has let more than 1,500 households in Suto Orizari register for property titles and access loans to extend and upgrade, according to Habitat for Humanity Macedonia.
SANCTUARY VS GHETTO
Yashar, who helps residents access schools, welfare and government programmes, said Roma residents support each other and - unlike the rest of the city, where racism is widespread - in Shutka people live free from discrimination.
But increasingly Shutka also feels like a "ghetto", he added, saying residents are left to fend for themselves.
Open Society Foundations, a philanthropic organisation, estimates that 90 percent of Shutka's residents rely on state welfare payments of 30 euros ($32.28) a month. Many top this up with informal labour or by begging, it said.
This year again, said Memed, jobs are a key election issue.
Aidan McGarry, politics lecturer at the University of Brighton and author of "Who Speaks for Roma?", a book on Roma political representation, said a minuscule tax base leaves the area dependent on outside investment in services like housing.
McGarry said the municipality cannot achieve growth on its own so relies on parliamentarians to fight for investment from central government.
"At the same time as they are autonomous, there is no 'voice' there," he said. "Usually, there's power in numbers but that doesn't translate in Suto Orizari."
WHO WILL SPEAK FOR ROMA?
Macedonia's veteran nationalist leader Nikola Gruevski looks set for a comeback in Sunday's election after stepping down in January as part of an EU-brokered deal to end a crisis that began in early 2015 and following almost a decade in power.
In Suto Orizari, most people see political leaders as ineffectual and have yet to see a candidate who will fight for funding for Roma communities, Memet said.
A "closed list" system for electing parliamentarians means voters cannot directly show dissatisfaction with unpopular candidates, said Saban Saliu, a Roma former member of parliament (MP) and now director of Macedonia's disaster response agency.
Voters do not vote for an individual candidate but pick one of a handful of 'candidate lists' drawn up by the heads of the leading parties.
This system encourages candidates to take a low profile, ask little from central government and not criticise party leaders, even when they deprive Roma communities of funds, Saliu said.
"But poverty is this underlying issue that needs to be resolved, first and foremost," said McGarry.
Yashar said residents complain that when municipal boundaries were drawn in 2001, areas of heavy industry on Suto Orizari's borders were assigned to neighbouring boroughs - depriving them of much-needed tax revenues.
McGarry said such deliberate segregation of Roma from the majority exacerbates their lack of economic and political power.
But this problem is not new, said McGarry. It can be traced back to Suto Orizari's birth in the early 1960s when Roma were moved from a traditional base near the city's commercial centre.
"Just the fact that Suto Orizari exists where it does is an absolute expression of the power of the state to marginalise and exclude, and then reinforce these decisions by deciding to not invest," said McGarry.
($1 = 0.9293 euros)
(Reporting by Matthew Ponsford, Editing by Paola Totaro and Jo Griffin.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, traficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)