Yesterday I happened to meet with a street scrap buyer who used to visit our households every 15 days for collecting, bottles, can, paper, plastic and any other metal scrap. He usually comes in a mini truck equipped with weighing machines with a couple of his assistants. The neighborhood was happy to dispose the scrap while getting money for it. He usually pays in hot cash or sometimes brings fruits like Mango etc and trades them for the scrap.
For the past 2 months there was no sign of him and not to mention that the scrap was accumulating in the households and people were desperately searching for the scrap collector to pick it up. So when I met him, I had asked why he didn’t turn up. He said he has almost stopped collecting the scrap as it is very expensive for him to go to houses and collect the scrap. The scrap metal (tin sheets, iron scrap etc) sells at Rupees 8 per Kg and the buyers do not offer cash immediately. A couple of months back the buyers(steel companies, foundries, Exporters) had offered advance to supply the scrap. Now the situation has changed.
They no longer collect pet bottles as there is no demand for it locally and the size of the scrap is a major problem in transporting it. Copper scrap too has come down a lot and 70% of the collectors have quit the business and moved into some other business. The price of the scrap metal is fixed by steel companies which form cartels. There is no proper regulation on scrap metal prices. This has made the lives of street scrap vendors miserable. They are completely at the mercy of the smelting companies. Adding to this the hike in diesel had made it practically impossible for transporting the scrap to places where they can fetch a better price.
Interestingly he added that the glass bottles especially whisky brandy and beer bottle rates are on the rise and have a high demand. So he is collecting only the bottles and working 2 days a week. It seems that the Govt. does a good job promoting the Liquor shops while ignoring the importance of recycling and reuse. It is disheartening to see the pet bottles and other recyclables going into the landfills. Will the authorities wake up or Are they just going to do Talk Big and do nothing as usual on the situation?