Shal­iza Has­sanali

Dar­ren Thomas be­gan ac­com­pa­ny­ing his par­ents to the Beetham Land­fill when he was three years old in search of "trash for cash."

Now 28, Thomas, who has nev­er seen the in­side of a class­room, earns be­tween “$800 to $2,000” per day sell­ing an as­sort­ment of met­als to scrap­yard deal­ers.

His earn­ings go to­ward rent, bills, food, and the pur­chase of de­sign­er brands of watch­es, clothes, shoes, and cologne to "bling out in style."

Thomas, who was sit­ting at the dump's en­trance with two oth­ers–Ed­win Gar­cia, 23, and Leroy Warn­er, 35–said pover­ty and hard­ship drove him to the dump to sup­port his fam­i­ly.

He dis­played his cal­loused hands to back up his claim.

The three Beetham Gar­dens men re­fused to be pho­tographed.

“Miss, I grow up in pover­ty. I know the hard life and what is sur­vival out here,” Thomas said.

Warn­er said, “It’s all about liv­i­ty.”

When in­formed of the dump's im­pend­ing clo­sure, the men said "This is our on­ly liveli­hood. We have noth­ing to fall back on and no jobs to get.

"When you look at it, we have about 500 peo­ple from Beetham who earn a liv­ing here. You think all ah we go get work when they shut down this place? Even if SWM­COL opens a trans­fer sta­tion it is not go­ing to cut it. Some ah we go suf­fer.

"Nah, they can’t close down the land­fill we have to live, we have to eat, we have to sur­vive," Thomas said, shak­ing his head.

Thomas re­mem­bered en­ter­ing the back of the land­fill with his par­ents as a tod­dler.

"I couldn’t even talk prop­er­ly, but I used to sneak in with my par­ents in the dump and start to search for things. I nev­er went to school, miss. I spent all my life here. But I am not stu­pid. I could read a lit­tle and still write my name.

"The most im­por­tant thing is I could make a dol­lar, and I am not dis­tress­ing peo­ple at the end of the day."

Scavangers wait for a garbage truck to offload waste.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Thomas said if his hands fall on bread, veg­eta­bles, snacks, fruits, and even cooked food while sift­ing through the waste he would con­sume it.

"Even though it is ex­pired stuff or old thing we eat any­thing. If peo­ple throw away mac­a­roni pie on Sun­day, and we get that in the dump on Mon­day, I eat­ing that. If we get raw meat we go pull two stones and some pieces of wood and light a fire and roast it right there, we are good with that."

The trio said they have nev­er had food poi­son­ing or fall­en ill from this. They are al­so un­af­fect­ed by the land­fill's tox­ic gas emis­sions or the of­fen­sive odour that per­vades the air.

"We bod­ies are im­mune to that. We healthy and strong," they boast­ed.

In the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Thomas said none of them be­came in­fect­ed with the virus.

Thomas said he tried get­ting out of the scav­eng­ing life, but could not land him­self a job.

"The minute I tell ah em­ploy­er I from Beetham, well that is it. My chance gone through, we are stig­ma­tised."

Yank­ing out strips of steel from a mound of garbage in­side the land­fill, 28-year-old Charl­ton Horne said for some­one to work in the dump "they must have bel­ly and mind." He added, "It is not for the faint of heart. You see all kinds of things in here."

The el­dest of 12 chil­dren, Horne, a res­i­dent of Beetham Gar­dens, first en­tered the land­fill af­ter cel­e­brat­ing his 14th birth­day with­out his par­ents’ ap­proval.

"My par­ents didn’t like the idea at all be­cause I was still at­tend­ing Bel­mont Ju­nior Sec­ondary School. They want­ed me to fo­cus on my ed­u­ca­tion. Be­ing the el­dest sib­ling, I want­ed to pro­vide fi­nan­cial sup­port to my par­ents be­cause things were a bit dif­fi­cult for all of us."

Horne said while he main­tained his ed­u­ca­tion, he con­tin­ued to hus­tle at the dump.

"I grad­u­at­ed with three CXC O’Lev­el pass­es but could not find em­ploy­ment. That’s how I end­ed up here full-time."

On a good day, Horne said he would rake in $400 which main­tains his two chil­dren.

The job may be dirty, but for the men who do it, it's a means to an end.

Scavengers search through garbage bags for valuables at the Beetham Landfill.

ABRAHAM DIAZ