May 20, 2004

He’s a common sight on the streets and roads of every city, as he pushes his cart and tries to get home owners to sell him their wares, but life for the raddi paperwala is anything but a bed of roses, writes Muhammad Bashir Chaudhry

You’ll often hear the cry of a raddi paperwala announcing his presence in the vicinity. He is commonly known by this name and is a familiar character roaming the streets of our towns and cities every day. He can be as young as 10 years of age and as old as 70 years.

The raddi paperwala doesn’t just collect paper to resell later. He buys old, out of order or discarded household items such as newspapers, magazines, books, shoes, electrical or electronic gadgets, iron bars or pipes, furniture, plastic articles, tires, glass bottles or jars, packaging material, brass items, etc. In short, he will buy anything — provided it is cheap and he can resell at a profit.

His tools of trade include a four-wheel push cart, a weighing scale with a few weights, a sack or an iron-sheet trunk and a few hundred rupees in small denominations.

He earns his living by performing a useful function of collecting waste paper and old or discarded items which in due course are recycled into useful new products for consumers. We should see him as the field force for the recycling industry. People can conveniently dispose off second-hand or discarded materials and earn small amounts in the bargain. Once you deal with him you will find him to be a shrewd businessman.

He is not bound by a 9 to 5 routine. His day starts around eight in the morning when he leaves his home with his push cart and usually works until afternoon. He starts walking the streets and announces his arrival by occasional shouts of raddi paperwala.

Often he walks miles and miles, sometimes passing the same streets at different hours of the day. He knows that people will sell their items to him when they are free from other more pressing engagements. One household may sell him old newspapers; the other may sell plastic items while the third might sell glass bottles or packaging materials. He stacks his purchases on to the push cart, using the sack and the trunk to separate the store metals and other ‘high-value’ products. More purchases increase the load on the push cart and it requires more effort to be pushed along.

Sometimes, if he is lucky his cart is fully loaded in the first few hours of the day and he is obliged to make the trip to the kabaria or the wholesaler in waste goods, to sell his collection. Once he’s had his collection weighed and sold at the kabaria’s, and usually after he’s had a cup of tea and a cigarette, he returns to the streets for some more business. Occasionally he might call it a day if he earns a handsome profit from the first trip.

Like most people, the raddi paperwala is prone to greediness and will try to rip off people when buying wares. He might cheat in the weighing of materials, or the price, or both. He will readily agree to a higher rate per kilo to induce customers into selling the material to him, and not wait for the familiar person known from the transactions in the past.

Newspapers are bulky items and if he cheats the customer by a few kilos he earns more. Such practices do not pay off in the long run. After one or two bad experiences, customers too realize that they have been fooled and in the future they avoid dealing with that particular seller.

There are certain items that are of no more use to one particular house owner but might be of interest to others. He may buy for example old books, furniture items, beautifully designed bottles at cheap rates and then re-sell them at reasonable prices to another party, as he’ll make more money this way than he would at the kabaria’s.

He is also aware of the second hand market for specific goods and might take these items there for disposal at a better margin. For him, there is reasonable potential to make a profit on some days of the week. However, due to prevailing high unemployment in the country, competition even in this profession is severe, since there are no entry barriers. The kabarias who buy waste products from a large number of raddi paperwalas, are operating in most of the localities. He keeps on buying, sorting and piling different materials and items in the compound, which he later sells in bulk to the recycling industries.

Items such as waste paper, glass, iron and plastic are in big demand. The material sold by the kabaria, though second hand, is dirt cheap as compared to the prices demanded by the respective suppliers of virgin raw materials. The recycling process makes economic sense and should be encouraged along more scientific lines. It also provides employment to a large number of people in every town and city.

The kabaria in each locality controls the rates of various waste items particularly the ones in large demand. He informs the raddi paperwalas about the rates at which he will be making purchases. Each raddi paperwala keeps a handsome margin for himself while bargaining with the people selling waste items to him.

He works hard and we should not grudge his making a reasonable profit. If he is using a rented push cart, he has to first earn the rent before expecting to make any profit. If he has his own push cart he is lucky and can save the rent and make a bigger profit for the family.

Life is tough for the raddi paperwala as walking in the streets for hours on end in the cold winters or in hot summers takes its toll. He has to work every day to earn a living for the family, and any illness or day off makes life tough for his family. Despite his important contribution towards the economy, he or his family are not entitled to any social security benefits in case of sickness, or old age, or sudden death.

Judging from their presence in the streets of different localities during the day, their number appears to be substantial. It would be socially desirable if raddi paperwalas as well as other such self-employed people are registered by the provincial Employees Social Security Institution for medical assistance, and by the Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution for pension benefits.

The existing rules do not allow their registration but one should find ways and means to bring such a large number of poor people into the social security net. If properly educated on the benefits of special schemes for medical aid and pension, they might agree to make monthly contributions to earn an entitlement for these government schemes.

In addition, they should be registered with the respective Town Councils for this particular trade in the specified localities of each town or city. This step might help introduce some discipline in the trade and to some extent also protect the households from any shady activities being conducted by the raddi paper-walas.

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