Driven by the need to supplement her pension earnings, Granny Johana Mahape from Temba, took an initiative to collect scrap boxes and bottles to sell. She said she might be old, but she is not disabled and there is also no day off for her because it depends on how much bottles and boxes she managed to collect in a week or two. Gogo Mahape collects used boxes, plastic bottles from shops and on the streets to sell.
After collecting the boxes and bottles, she calls the scrap collectors who buy them to come and collect, and they pay her according to how many kilograms her bottles or boxes weigh. This makes life bearable because she has realized that she can not survive on her pension money alone.
Gogo Mahape, says times are tough, and one has to make ends meet, “the little money I get from selling bottles and boxes help me maintain necessary things because with inflation being high and prices increasing continuously, life is going to continue being more difficult”.
Gogo also weighs her options when it comes to selling to collectors. “The scales used by the collectors to weigh the boxes and bottles are different and they pay differently. “I prefer working with collectors from Bon Accord because they pay better than others “.
“Collecting and selling those two together with the pension money makes my financial life better and I can afford to maintain myself,” she said.
