Scrap-collectors go magnetic in Dhaka sewers

FE Team | Published: September 16, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Shakhawat Hossain
Sagar was breathing heavy and sweating hard while carrying a bag full of junk iron he collected from sewers under melting sun.
He gave a broad smile after putting his bounty at a Swamibagh scrap iron shop in old Dhaka. The bag weighed 15 kilogram and Sagar cheerily sold his collections for Tk 375.
"God is kind to me today. It took me just three and a half hours to collect the iron. And today, the price is very good," Sagar said.
A part-time Dhaka city corporation sweeper, Sagar is a beneficiary of soaring global price of iron which has resulted in spike in scrap prices in the domestic market.
Since early last year, the price hike has bred new jobs like Sagar's, who scours city's hundreds of miles of mazy drains and sewers with magnet sticks to collect scraps to sell in the city's more than a thousand scrap shops.
"When we started collecting irons with magnet stick, there were only a few of us. People thought it was the nastiest job. But since then price of scraps have more than doubled," said the 25 year young man.
Scrap metal shop owners said the number of collectors who rummage through sewers for junk metals has grown to over hundred.
"If you can endure the smell, it's a very good profession for living," Isa Miah, a scrap shop owner said.
The demand for scraps collected across the country has shot up dramatically in the last few years, due largely to global price hike and a surge in construction activities.
Scraps are the most important source of raw materials for the country's more than 100 re-rolling mills, which melt them to make low-grade iron rod - a key construction component.
Bangladesh Re-rolling Mills Association secretary general Sheikh Masadul Alam said scrap metals now make up 30 per cent of the 2.5 million tonnes rods produced by the local mills. The rest come from imported scraps and dismantled ships.
"Due to sharp price hike of scrap ships, imported scraps and billets, mills are increasingly buying junk iron and scraps from local sources," he said,
Ship scraps now trade at over US$600 a tonne at Sitakundua, up from $300 in January 2007.The prices of imported scraps also almost doubled during the period.
"As a result, there are scraps shops all over the country and more people are collecting junk iron to make a living," Alam said.
The price hike has also made the country's train communications 'risky' and 'dangerous', as every day there are reports of theft of irons from railway tracks.
In March this year, in what was described as the most daring theft in the Bangladesh Railway's history, some 3510 rail clips, weighing about four tonnes, went missing from two kilometres rail tracks near Banani.
BR officials said they initially suspected the incident as an act of sabotage. But later law enforcing agencies confirmed that an organised gang stole the clips to cash in on soaring iron prices.
Bangladesh Railway chief engineer Mohammad Abul Kashem told the FE each of the 3510 stolen clips would fetch Tk 110 to Tk 120, meaning the market price of the stolen clips would be around Tk 0.35 million.
"These gangs have made rail communications risky and dangerous. We cannot guard every inch of our railway track. As a result, every day we have reports of clips thefts," said another top official.
Higher price and soaring demand have brought about new dimension in the business strategy of hundreds of 'scrap metal shops --- known locally as bhnagaies--- in the old Dhaka.
They now welcome even the worst-graded junk and have scores of collectors in their daily pay-roll.
Chand Mia, an owner of a bhangari at Rishikes Das Lane, said to keep the scrap collectors happy, some of the shops make the payment in advance.
"They are the most important players in the business," Mia said, referring to scrap collectors.
Sagar said last year he sold lowest quality junk iron at Tk 15 per kilogram. "But today, the price is Tk 25 per kilogram," he said.
About the magnet-stick, he said some of his fellow sweepers invented the new technique to collect junk irons.
"We used to collect stuffs from drains with spade and rackers. It was cumbersome and painstaking. Magnet stick makes the job ten times easier," he said.
Proudly showing the 'magnet-stick' Sagar said he drives it into a sewer through the gap of concrete slabs and drags it to and fro before pulling it up, heavy with small pieces of scrap metals.
"My income has increased dramatically after I started using the magnet stick. If you can make two trips through the drains a day, you can make more than Tk 500," he said. Sikdar, 22 and a friend of Sagar, has been in the scrap collection profession for half a dozen years.
His income has risen four-fold since he started using the magnet stick. Early this year, he bought a piece of land in his village in Barisal. The scrap collectors said they are frequently accused of stealing iron products from the houses and breaking iron slabs from manholes.
"People blame us for all sorts of crimes. But those foul acts are committed by drug peddlers and petty thieves," said Sagar.
"We pick left-over irons. There is no harm in it," he said.