And in Thailand, squatters in Bangkok have designed portable walkways that they can install over boggy ground and take with them when they are evicted. In Nairobi's second-largest squatter community, Korogocho, around the Dandora waste dump in the east of the city, local priests have launched the Makuru Recycling Centre. The centre helps people who scavenge on the dump to sell what they produce without middlemen eating into their profits. A decade on, they are selling compost made from market waste to garden centres, and recovered glass and metal to city factories. The centre also helps to add value to the scavenged materials, with a locally designed and manufactured machine that converts waste paper into fuel briquettes for sale to schools and houses.
Workers take turns on what looks like a pair of exercise bikes.
Their effort turns blades that chop the waste paper, which is then soaked overnight, mixed with sawdust or coffee husks from local mills, and compressed and shaped in a hand-powered extruder, also locally made. The resulting briquettes are left to dry in the sun. A lot of people here said it wouldn't work. As local people take over, the centre's aid workers will be able to move on to other things. The method is extremely replicable and could be profitable almost anywhere you can get waste paper.