The Entrepreneurs of Kabul

Today I went on a tour of a number of recycling facilities in Kabul.  I'd heard rumours about Afghan capability to recycle various goods, and I wanted to see for myself what they could do, so when a local Afghan contact offered to take me out on the town, I jumped at the opportunity. 

Also, I'd been informed that trucks carrying sewage, ostensibly to the Kabul sewage treatment plant (STP), were in fact just dumping it in ditches.   I wanted to witness this as well, as well as determine if any of these trucks were being paid by us.  Our drivers are paid to deliver their load to the STP.

Easy right?  See if any of these trucks were illegally dumping and report back and hopefully get the problem fixed.  Sorted.  Move on.

Well, we did see some trucks dumping sewage in area next to the sewage treatment plant.  They got a little testy when we pulled up and took some pictures so, discretion being the better part of valour, we pulled out of there post haste.

But then we went around back to where the sewage treatment plant discharges, and it occurred to me that the treatment plant wasn't doing much good. 

The Kabul STP is an old Russian relic that had been originally designed to serve a very small area, but it now serves all of Kabul, currently numbering around four million inhabitants.  It simply cannot meet this capacity and subsequently it discharged what appeared to pretty much untreated sewage to a tributary directly upstream of the Kabul River.  (Click to enlarge.)

Near the discharge of the sewage treatment plant near the Kabul River.  This is basically untreated sewage.

The entire area stunk of raw sewage, and the river was covered in scum and was literally bubbling with toxins.  What's worse, is that the area is inhabited, and there are farms in the area that use the water as irrigation.  The elders told of children being sick and getting growths on their faces that sometimes lasted a year.  The locals would use the "water" to wash their harvest in, and would be on their knees in the muck all day doing their farming.  The river also floods in this area, and the people living here get their water from shallow wells.

Fields irrigtaed by, basically, raw sewage.  The burlap sacks is where they put the vegetables, to keep them from drying out during harvesting.

Women toiling in the fields.

But there's no money for a new treatment plant, and with the list of other pressing priorities—not the least of which is the security of the Afghan people, especially after the vast majority of coalition forces leave.  Meanwhile the problem becomes worse as war and economic refugees increase the burden on the city's scant infrastructure.

So what started off as a little problem soon became a large intractable mess.  This is typical of many problems in Afghanistan, as you attempt to address a small problem and realize that due to decades of war and poor governance....  There's no economy to fall back on.  There's little government to fall back on.  There's no infrastructure to fall back on.  They are on their own.  Eye Opener Number One of the day.

Then it was off to tour some scrap metal and plastic recycling facilities.  Again, this was a real eye-opener for me.  Not only do Afghans have the capability to recycle, but they do it with ruthless efficiency, and always have.  There is no waste here.  Opportunistic garbage dumps are first scoured by the poor for anything of value, and then the dogs have a go at them, and lastly the goats come in to eat anything organic that's left.

The plants themselves tend to be labour-intensive.  For several workers, their job is to take incoming plastic and hack it up with knives, before it goes into the machine to be shredded.  

My job is to hack up the bucket and put it in the machine.

At the scrap metal plant, about a dozen workers pulled a red hot bar from a furnace and passed it through a number of rollers to turn it into rebar (those steel rods used to reinforce concrete).  They all shook hands with me and I noticed a few of them were missing fingers.

Pulling the superheated steel from the furance.  By the way it's 36 deg C outside.

Rolling the red-hot cast metal into rebar.  

As is the Afghan way, we stopped for tea many times and I got to hear from the entrepreneurs running the various factories.  It's not often they see a white guy out and about.  They talked about the international organizations like ISAF (which is essentially NATO plus about 15 other nations operating as the coalition forces in Afghanistan) and the UN and others, holed up in their fortresses, and occasionally zooming about from Point A to Point B, with little real interaction with the Afghan people.  But for all that, they worry about what will happen when the coalition and US forces leave.  They talked about the difficulties running a business in Afghanistan.

One owner told me that he dresses like his workers, and drives a beat-up old car.  (Afghanistan is the Toyota graveyard of the world; about 90% of the vehicles here are old Toyota Camrys and Corollas).  It simply doesn't do to show signs of wealth here, because then you become a target for kidnappers, warlords and corrupt officials.

The final place I visited was a fabrication plant.  Here, the owner had all his workers in hard hats and gloves, with welding glasses.  Workers had to strap themselves in if they were working at height, and there were even labeled first aid stations.

These people have managed to create thriving businesses under daunting circumstances. "We appreciate the efforts of our international friends, said one fellow with an only slightly cynical smile, "But all Afghans know we must do this ourselves."

All in all, a very eye-opening day. I would despair trying to wrap my head around how severe and intractable their challenges here are,  but heartened by the entrepreneurial spirit, resilience, candor and hospitality of the Afghan people.

As my tour guide told me, dropping me off after a long day in the desert sun:

Qatra qatra darya mesha.  A river is made drop by drop.