8. 1. Waste disposal site of the City of Porto Novo, Benin

Starting early in the morning to find the big waste disposal site the German guy in the beach bar had talked about. We went out of Cotonou direction Porto Novo, the capital of Benin and looked for waste. There was only the usual amount of garbage around, no big deal. We could not find anything, and then we arrived in Porto Novo. What to do?

After a drink, we asked a zemidjan-driver, if there was aluminium-recycling here. We had heard before, that all the waste metal in Benin goes to Porto Novo for recycling. The zemidjan driver brought us to some small booths, where people offered the pots we knew so well for sale. This was not enough, so we asked for the city´s waste disposal site.

The zemidjan brought us to a small place in the middle of a residential area, with the sign saying, that the site belonged to the City of Porto Novo.

A school class with teacher was standing on the other side, and suddenly somebody started to burn the trash. All of a sudden, we were in the middle of smoke, and on a place nearby the same thing seemed to happen.

We went to the teacher to ask, what he was doing there, and he told, that he was educating the children about waste and hygiene: Waste should not be near the house but brought to a dump site and burned or buried. The teacher was talking, and the children listened carefully and wrote on their blackboards. Stefan made an interview, and we exchanged email-addresses.

The man who burned the waste was paid by the City of Porto Novo to care for the waste, burning is the usual practice. There were lots of houses and people living in the neighborhood.

Porto Novo has about 250.000 inhabitants, divided into districts. Each of them has their own dump site, but there was still too much waste on the streets: many people prefer to simply throw their waste out to the streets instead of bringing it to the dump site or paying the people who collect it with their carts and bring it there.

We found some nice dividends for our shareholders, one of it was a water bottle re-used for traditional medication. It has the package insert glued on it, typed with typewriter.