Shithole Recycling à la Camerounaise
A sardonic inventory of how ordinary Cameroonians repurpose waste materials out of necessity and ingenuity, even as the state fails to enforce its climate commitments. The piece catalogs everything from plastic bottles becoming oil decanters to exercise books wrapping street food, suggesting that grassroots resourcefulness has become de facto environmental policy.
A month or so back, our president flew off to France for the ‘One Planet Summit’; yet another summit on climate change. Meanwhile in Yaoundé, the streets and dustbins have become increasingly overflown this festive period. I recently counted a 2 week period whence HYSACAM did not collect dirt from the three small plastic bins in my neighbourhood; 3 bins that are supposed to serve a surface area with over 100 households.
Cameroon is signatory to many climate accords; from the Paris Accords to the ones meant to roll back the desertification of parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Lake Chad Basin Commission; you name it.
But as usual, most things in Cameroon die on paper as little is done to effectively enforce the engagements that have been undertaken to make them come to life. For that reason, ordinary Cameroonians like me and you have come up with our way to tackle these issues either by accident or by necessity.
So here’s how Cameroonians are aiding the planet through recycling.
PLASTIC BOTTLES: Those that do not end up in the gutters and streams end up being used for something else. The 1.5L bottles usually become decanters; either for palm oil or bleached oil. The smaller plastic bottles are used to sell folere and yogurt. I saw a video about plastic bottles being used somewhere in Idenau to construct a boat. I don’t know how far that will go.
GLASS BOTTLES: They end up broken on the floor or on someone’s head after a bar fight. Very useful as an anti-theft mechanism when put on top of the concrete walls of houses. Not forgetting all the temporal use/reuse in packaging peanuts.
EXERCISE BOOKS: Used in selling puffpuff, boiled groundnuts, corn and plum and a whole array of foodstuff. If you care for it, it can also be used for entertainment as you can read the essay of the student that scored 4/20 on the paper used to wrap up your groundnuts.
NEWSPAPERS: By default they are used to sell bread. They are large and can carry up to six loaves at a time.
CEMENT PAPER: What would soya be without cement paper? Some people say if soya tastes the way it tastes, it’s because the cement residue on the paper adds an extra flavour to the meat. At some point in our lives, we will all start shitting bricks.
OVALTINE CONTAINERS: Used in the kitchen for keeping egusi and groundnut.
PLASTIC PAPER: Used to start fires when there is no kerosene.
SCRAP METAL: Used to make works of art. The njounjou kalaba at Rond Point Deido in Douala is the quintessential example.
CAR TYRES: Children’s toy for parents who cannot afford Nintendo and PlayStation.
Necessity is the mother of invention, right?
It would be nice if all the manufacturers infusing non-biodegradable packaging into our communities can think beforehand of some of the ways in which we recycle and incorporate that into their designs. That is, designs that will encourage people to recycle more. Think of the cabin biscuit packaging that used to come with some board games. What if Ovaltine manufacturers included some text on the containers that spoke of the various ways the container can be used after its contents have been consumed.
What other recycling practice do you know of? Drop it in the comment section.
- Wandji Wilfred.
Written in early 2018, during a moment when Cameroon's government was signing international climate accords while basic municipal waste collection in cities like Yaoundé remained sporadic and inadequate. The piece sits at the intersection of environmental concern and wry social observation—the tone reflects a citizen's frustration with the gap between official rhetoric and lived reality.
Then, it was a sharp critique of performative governance: the president attends summits abroad while bins overflow at home. Now, it reads as a documentary of informal circular economy—a reminder that where infrastructure fails, communities invent their own. The humor masks a serious point: adaptation and resilience are often borne by those least responsible for the crisis, and their ingenuity should not substitute for accountability from state and industry.