On average, the man only makes a little over a dollar per day from collecting aluminum cans and plastic water bottles that he sells to a local recycling center. But he adds that people often give me food and money as well, and several people purposefully keep cans to give to me. I guess they pity me… When he was younger he worked as a low paid mechanic and second hand electronic goods trader. But as he got older he found it difficult to work with his hands. Around the same time, cheap electronic goods flooded the market and he found it hard to get by. Landless, alone, and with no capital or assets he found himself squatting next to a pagoda in Siem Reap.

As he hobbles off to prepare his bike, I ask his neighbor what will happen when they are finally evicted from their corrugated iron and wooded huts sprawling along a laneway that is being flattened by provincial authorities. She pauses as if not entirely sure herself; we will find somewhere to rent…….cheap rent…. around town…. so we can keep doing recycling….” she says as her solemn expression reveals she is not entirely convinced by her own words. But we will take care of that grandpa wherever we go and make sure he’s fed. The residents always knew the time would eventually come when they were forced to leave – drawn by desperation and landlessness they managed to postpone the cruel market logics of rising land prices and gentrification for more than a decade.
 

Photo taken by Dr. Tim Frewer

Urban recyclers in Siem Reap have a contradictory existence. On the one hand their labor is peripheral to the needs of capital. They are the people excluded from labor markets due to age, sickness, caring responsibilities, indebtedness, or circumstance (rural migrants, deaths in the family, separation from partners etc.). It is in this desperate state that their labor meets with capital (in the form of depot owners who buy recyclable goods off them). Yet capital knows it has the upper hand and pays this fractured and injured work force a piece rate well below the cost of living. The average monthly income from our sample of 94 waste pickers was just over USD100. The recyclers have to scrabble together a livable income from precarious construction work, debt, begging and remittances.

For the poorest recyclers redistribution is an important part of their existence; like the old man, they work hard to get food, money and recyclable goods from those better off than them. So too their own mutual aid networks – mostly other recyclers – make sure the poorest do not go hungry. In a context where the state takes almost no responsibility for those who are too sick, old or burdened to earn income, these redistributive relations and mutual aid networks are crucial.

Yet simultaneously the labor of recyclers moves thousands of kilograms of material throughout the city every day. Their labor produces the most important environmental service in the city. Collectively, the unwaged recycler labor force is by far the most important and numerous labor force involved in solid waste disposal. Recyclers sift through undifferentiated waste throughout the city carefully removing aluminum cans, plastic bottles, cardboard and scrap metal. Even after disposal at waste dumps, hundreds of recyclers sift through piles of waste to extract recyclables.

How did it end up like this? They are the poor, sick, disabled, single mothers, elderly who are rejected from the formal labor force, and unable even to do small scale trading, squatting on marginal lands or barely making rent at the edges of the city. How did it happen that these people were drawn together due to discarded piles of bottles and cans?

To answer this, we have to first start with the waste.

The can started its life as a technology to feed European settlers as they fought wars and violently settled colonized lands. In its aluminum form, it helped to transport across the world the excesses of the colonial plantation system (sugar in the form of soda). The soda can was made of aluminum due to newly discovered industrial processes that could cheaply extract aluminum from bauxite ore (at great cost of energy – but which was subsidized by cheap fossil fuels, the cost of which is being paid now).

American smelting companies like Alcoa accumulated incredible profits through expanded war time production and the insatiable demand for sugary drinks that has not relented in the eight decades following the end of World War II. In that time the aluminum can -carrying a seemingly endless supply of cheap sugary drinks, has been exported to every corner of the world with little thought of what happens to the discarded waste. That the aluminum can is technically 100% recyclable was an afterthought – even in its home country it has only ever reached a 50% recycling rate. What chance does Cambodia have of dealing with an ever increasing mass of aluminum cans when the formal waste disposal system barely covers half the population?

The story of plastic bottles follows a similar trajectory. Bottled mineral water originated in 17th century England alongside the belief that mineral waters had special rejuvenating and healing qualities. By the mid-19th century, at the peak of scientific racism when the English were desperately looking for a scientific basis for colonial subjugation, these ideas had morphed into something new. Namely, that temperate spas (and their waters) were rejuvenating for the “white constitution” that was forged in the cool temperate climate, and due to colonialism was living in the dangerous tropics. Around the same time the French were setting up hill stations and colonial spas in Vietnam and Cambodia as a remedy to the perceived ills of the tropical climate (and tropical people). Mineral water was first bottled in glass bottles and became popular in Europe in the latter half of the 19th century. By the early 20th century mineral water had not yet caught on in the America – mostly due to the advent of chlorinated water which provided clean and safe drinking water to the population. This changed however with the creation of the plastic bottle.

The creation of the first plastic was spurred on by rising demand for ivory. European colonial projects had created both a rising supply and demand for ivory where Asian and African elephants in European colonies were forced to give up their tusks for billiard balls – a favorite game of colonial administrators and the European upper classes alike. The trend caught on in America and soon demand far surpassed supply. It was at this point the first plastic polymer was created. But it was World War II and the U.S military’s need for plastics that saw a boom in the burgeoning industry in applications that went well beyond upper class luxury goods. Post World War II, rising incomes and massive production of plastics using cheap oil, resulted in incredible diversification and demand for plastics. In 1973 US company DuPont patented the Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle and since that time global production has increased exponentially. There was never really any thought given to recycling plastics by those who created them; plastic bottles have been recklessly promoted by petro chemical companies intoxicated on the profits of post-war North American mass consumerism. Now plastics production has spread across the world and again countries like Cambodia are faced with ever increasing imports of plastics, with very limited capacity to properly discard of them.

But back to the waste pickers. How did they end up where they are? Each story is unique; a young woman living in Siem Reap who lost her job during COVID-19, a middle aged man who was forced to sell his rice fields in a rural area a decade ago, a single mother who is the survivor of domestic abuse and has to raise three children on her own. They are mostly women (73% of our interviewees), nearly all of them are landless, the vast majority have minimal education (only 2.3% of 94 interviewees has finished high school) and they lack assets and capital. In fact, this was given as the most important reason for doing waste picking in the first place – that due to a lack of capital and income waste picking was the only available livelihood activity that one can get daily income (people are usually paid monthly in Cambodia). But this is not merely a collection of individual stories of deprivation. It is a tendency played out by millions across the world – the “informal workers”, the lumpenproletariat, the survivalists; the people that traditional economic theory thinks should not exist in a global modern economy, but whose numbers proliferate.

85% of Cambodia’s workforce is within the “informal sector”. Even with an average GDP growth rate of 7.7% the number of people entering the work force is far beyond the number of jobs created each year. In 2019 the workforce was 11.5 million (an 80% increase since 2001) yet only 7.8 million were engaged in formal or informal work.

The reasons why this “surplus labor” congregates in Siem Reap are complex and multifaceted; simultaneously part of broader global trends that emerge wherever there is a transition to a capitalist mode of production. At the same time, there are factors particular to the historical and geographic specificities of Siem Reap. Several waste pickers come from farming families that have been ejected from the agrarian economy due to distress land sales – mirroring the exodus of English farmers from common lands to urban areas starting in the 17th century. We found that over 90% of waste pickers in Siem reap were squatting on public lands or without hard land title. 72% of people we interviewed had come from a rural area. Yet, life trajectories also reflect particular historical dynamics – migrations after the Khmer Rouge period and diversified household livelihood strategies that responded to new opportunities in rapidly growing Siem Reap with its booming tourism industry.

Something incredible happens when this desperate and injured workforce meets with the over-accumulated waste of mass-consumerism; forged under conditions of exploitation, emerges a labor force which finally addresses the question that DuPont and Alcoa never bothered to ask? Namely who is actually going to go out there and collect all this waste and bring it back to factories?
 
Photo taken by Dr. Tim Frewer

The ghostly labor force that quietly combs the streets for cans, bottles and cardboard in the early morning or cool of the night is remarkable. They recover tens of thousands of tons of goods every month – just in Siem Reap, that would otherwise end up in rivers or landfill. They are doing more to recycle plastics than any company, government ministry or NGO. They are doing more than all of these actors combined.

While donors and NGOs, state officials, concerned upper class folks and businesses write reports, conduct campaigns and run workshops, the waste pickers go out night and day across the country sifting, collecting, transporting and refining. Yet the donors, the NGOs, the ministries and the businesses pretend the waste pickers don’t exist. The Coca Cola bottling plant in Phnom Penh announces it will shift to 100% recycling. The Siem Reap city administration announces its commitment to reducing plastic waste and becoming a “clean and green city”. NGOs and donors pledge resources towards plastic reduction and recycling. But the unanswered question to all these activities is what labor force is going to achieve all of this and how will they be paid?

What little donor money has gone into the recycling industry has so far been focused on commercial recycling factories. This is necessary and a good first step. Much more could be done to support domestic recycling capacity. But the most urgent issue is the issue of labor in the recycling chain. The entire industry is fundamentally built on the exploitation of a very desperate labor pool. Profit can be extracted at various stages because of this severely underpaid labor. Depot owners do not care about the environment or welfare – for them cans, bottles, cardboard and scrap metal are no different to the “natural resources” that any other capitalist producer exploits- “the free gifts of nature.” Waste is simply a product of the urban ecologies we are a part of; produced from the metabolic relations that allow cities to reproduce themselves with all their excesses and inequalities from one day to the next. We can’t trust the recycling industry as it is now to better the conditions of its labor force.
 

Photo taken by Dr. Tim Frewer

The solutions to this are both sitting in plain sight and simultaneously require bold thinking, planning and actions. The labor force is already there – it just needs a livable income. The Cambodian state cannot ignore the welfare needs of its most desperate groups – the crisis is growing from one year to the next. So too, the ever increasing amounts of plastic waste cannot be abandoned to flow into the great Tonle Sap lake – one of the most productive fisheries of the world. Perhaps recycling cooperatives run by workers? Perhaps supported through state subsidies, taxes and tariffs on plastics and aluminum can imports and local producers? Maybe investments in domestic recycling capacity that directly benefits people working in the recycling industry? (multilateral and bilateral donors are certainly willing to throw money at the Cambodian government for all sorts of environmental projects).

I recall the words of 30-year-old male who goes out every day for up to ten hours scavenging for cans and bottles. He laughs when I ask him about the difficulties he faces in picking; I didn’t create the bottles or cans – I didn’t even drink the liquids that were within them. I just collect them and spend every day cleaning up the environment. Yet the people who do create the cans, and the ones who did drink their contents, act as if my work does not exist and give no value to what I do…

This research was conducted by SFS students Zoe Friese, Campbell Nicholson and Karin Schroeder across 2022 and 2023. Samraksa Seang, Program Assistant, helped throughout all stages.

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Curious about SFS Cambodia? Click here to read more.

With diverse experiences of the Amboseli ecosystem during the field exercises, travelling lectures, guest lectures, and group discussions, students were able to tailor their research to the needs of the ecosystem.

The field expeditions in Amboseli National Park and Maasai Mara National Reserve were a needed break from the field exercises and lectures. On the leeward side of Mt. Kilimanjaro, lies Amboseli National Park that has hot and dusty weather. The morning and evening game drives give the best scenic view of wildlife at the wetlands. Maasai Mara reserve on the other hand, has cool and wet weather with breathtaking savanna landscapes.

Two months into the fall semester, students embarked on course selection of their directed research projects that led to writing their research proposals. Project selections were diverse, students studied flora and faunal species studies, their interaction with the environment, and the human dimensions of conservation. These projects addressed critical questions of the Kenya Center’s strategic research plan: How effective is electric fence in mitigating human wildlife conflict in Amboseli ecosystem? What is the spatial distribution and impact of invasive species within the Amboseli ecosystem?

With diverse experiences of the Amboseli ecosystem during the field exercises, travelling lectures, guest lectures, and group discussions, students were able to tailor their research to the needs of the ecosystem. Studies were conducted in various conservancies within the Kimana group ranch, Amboseli ecosystem. From the onset of the projects, students digitized their data sheets and questionnaires using an online mobile app, Kobo collect. The app eased the need for tedious data entry after long hours in the field. Data collection in the field came with some hardships – a mix of dry, dusty field sites with sudden rainy showers during site visits, long walks and language translation difficulties from Maa language to English. All this paid off during one of the interviews, when an orphaned duiker rescued by a game ranger was comforted by the presence of the students and having friendly, welcoming community who offered shelter when it rained.

Engaging students to understand daily struggles that communities experience amidst climate change is important. The exposure enhances their learning and contributes to finding collaborative, workable solutions at community levels.

 

Photo taken by Anna Chahuneau.

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Curious about the SFS Kenya Center? Click here to read about why we’re based there, our environmental research focus, how we support the local community, and even take a tour of the Center.

With the wind, the water would ripple, and so would the rice stalks… I will never forget the image of the green waves making their way across the valley.

Photo of Paro on our way back to the SFS Center. Shows the view of the rice fields with the mountainous background.

I didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived in Bhutan. In all my research, I never read anything that explained to me how I would feel entering Bhutan. Flying into Bhutan, you felt like the wings of the plane would touch the mountain peaks. Instantly I noticed the kindness in each person, the boldness of the animals, and the wildness of the mountain forests. The SFS center, which the students this summer called ‘the Palace’, sits on a hill overlooking the town of Paro. Some elements of Paro felt very familiar to me; children getting out of school, store clerks sweeping their steps, teenagers with their Nikes, ice cream scoops on hot days. Yet, all of this was mixed with things I had never seen before. Cows and horses walking down the main street in line with the cars, chilies drying in patches on the sidewalk, monks getting their groceries, dozens of dogs strolling across the street like children, and the presence of rice fields sprawled out in every direction with towering mountains swallowing up the city.

Looking down from the Palace, the rice looked like overgrown fields that I am used to seeing at home but brighter. When the wind blew this whole picture changed, as the fields became fluid and moved like water. I was in Bhutan during the rice growing season, so the rice stalks were about 10 inches out of the water. With the wind, the water would ripple, and so would the rice stalks. When I watched this, I would think of a green ocean. I will never forget the image of the green waves making their way across the valley.

One of my favorite parts of this program was participating in homestays during our excursions. Just outside of Punakha, we stayed with a lovely couple that opened their home to our entire group, and in the valley of Phobjikha, I was able to stay with four other students with a woman and her grandson. In Punakha, the family allowed us to go into one of their rice paddies to learn how to plant rice, a very diligent task. Waking up in the morning with a steaming bowl of rice, I began to understand how much effort was done to get this rice on the table. I could look outside the window and see where the rice came from, where it dried, and the kitchen they prepared it in. At home, I never felt a connection between myself and the food that I ate. Since this experience, I often think about the process that it took for the food to get on my table, and I try to be more thankful for the labor that is often not seen.

Homestay family’s rice patties outside Punakha. Photo taken by Emma Gellman.

We were also able to visit the Bhutanese Agricultural Society in Bajo. Here, we learned how Bhutan is working towards a completely organic agricultural system. I saw how dedicated they were to use every piece of rice to help with food production and eliminate waste. I couldn’t help but imagine how much food waste I participate in at home, and I started to think of ways that I could adopt some of what I was learning in my daily life.

While I have spoken a lot about rice, the best experience that I had during my summer was my directed research. I was in a team of three girls and our professor studying phytodiversity along an altitudinal and anthropogenic disturbance gradient. The hike up to Bumdra (an area high above Tiger’s Nest) was one of the most difficult day hikes I have ever done, but it was the most rewarding. Our research took three days which consisted of laughing, counting, measuring, and finding the best spot for our lunch breaks (rice included). I feel so incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to aid in Dr. Purna Chhetri’s research.

Photo with Dr. Purna Chhetri during directed research in Bumndra.

Now as I sit here finishing this blog, I have caught myself again staring at the green waves of rice moving towards the mountains. The Palace may not have the best Wi-Fi, but it sure does have a once-in-a-lifetime view of the beautiful nature and culture of Bhutan.

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Curious about the SFS Bhutan Center? Click here to read about why we’re based there, our environmental research focus, how we support the local community, and even take a tour of the Center.

 
 
 
 

Photo of our rice planting lesson.

Photo of me from our day trip to Tiger’s Nest.

Our nightly boat ride back from the research site was amazing. A meteor shower was happening, and the sky was clear enough that we saw several shooting stars!

 
Monday
We started our week out with my favorite breakfast, chocolate chip pancakes, cooked by our amazing kitchen staff! This was our first day of sampling for our Directed Research (DR) projects, so we spent most of the day getting prepared. I am a part of Dr. Rosa’s DR group and we are studying Opiliones (grand daddy long legs) biodiversity within the different islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago. Since Opiliones are most active at night, our sampling takes place from 7pm-9pm. Our first site we sampled was on Isla Solarte, and we found 182 grand daddy long legs!!! Our trail started at a graveyard, which is rumored to be the most haunted place in Bocas, oooooo spooky. While we did not see any ghosts, the mosquitoes were TERRIFYING and were swarming us as we tried to eat dinner. Morale was low for a second, but our Hershey’s chocolate sampling snacks picked our motivation back up.
 
Tuesday
On Tuesday morning, we had to go through the samples we collected and take pictures. In the field, we found a species that appears to have major and minor male dimorphisms (males that are different sizes), so we take pictures in order to digitally analyze their body measurements. To get pictures of them, we strap them to our “Opilio-meter” using rubber bands, which is a strange sight for sure. In addition to visiting different islands, we also separated our research sites into those which are ‘disturbed’ and ‘undisturbed.’ Tuesday night, we went to one of our most disturbed sites and we only found 45 grand daddy long legs (which seems to support our hypothesis, yay!). While we didn’t see as many grand daddy long legs, we still saw a lot of wildlife, including a two-toed sloth and two snakes. Our nightly boat ride back from the research site was amazing. A meteor shower was happening, and the sky was clear enough that we saw several shooting stars!
 

Sam, Zoe, and I with the Opilio meter. Photo by Rosa Quesada.
 
Wednesday
On Wednesday, we sampled on Isla San Cristobal at Cacao Blessings. Before we started sampling, we of course had our nightly chocolate. Those chocolates are our lifelines when we are sampling. We saw (and heard, thanks Rosa!) many poison dart frogs. On San Cristobal they are red with blue legs, affectionately referred to as ‘strawberry blue jeans.’ We sampled around 90 daddy long legs that night. I also held a tailless whip scorpion, which for all my Harry Potter fans, is the spider that Mad Eye Moody performs the Unforgivable Curses on in the Goblet of Fire!!!!
 

Photo by Zoe Lowe.
 
Thursday
On Thursday, we were all weary from three consecutive nights of sampling and we all slept in late. We spent the day taking pictures and hanging out by the pool. We sampled that night on Isla Colón, which meant we got to stay at the Center for dinner. I was so excited to be back for dinner and it did not disappoint. Hugo (our incredible chef) made his famous homemade tacos with guacamole, pico de gallo, and tortilla chips. It was the perfect send off for our last night of sampling of the week. We found over 250 grand daddy long legs that night, which was insane. We found five species that we had not found on the other islands. That pushed our total species count up to 17 species!!
 

It was amazing, and we saw a bunch of really bright ones! I’m so glad I’m surrounded by a group of people that are always open to embrace spontaneous moments and partake in everything this beautiful world has to offer.

 
Friday
Friday morning, we had to go scout for our second site on Isla Colón. We took a van over to La Gruta, which is a nature reserve. We couldn’t find a site that would be suitable for sampling, but we did run into a couple of scientists working with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. They were releasing two bats into a cave on the reserve and they let us watch!! It was so cool to see other researchers in action and we learned a lot about the feeding mechanisms of the species of leaf nose bat that they were studying! After our hard week of sampling, we just hung around the Center for the rest of the day. After dinner, Andy and our awesome student reps planned a Spa Night for us. We all did face masks and painted each other’s nails and it was exactly what we needed to relax after sampling. As our face masks dried, we watched a classic, Twilight. Friday night was the peak of the Lyrids meteor shower that was happening, so a group of us walked out to the dock and laid down to watch. It was amazing, and we saw a bunch of really bright ones! I’m so glad I’m surrounded by a group of people that are always open to embrace spontaneous moments and partake in everything this beautiful world has to offer.
 

Photo by Marie Ervin.
 
Saturday
On Saturday, we spent the first half of the day at the Center and enjoyed lunch on campus. A group of us spent the rest of the day at the Floating Bar. I would definitely recommend the Floating Bar, especially if you bring your snorkel. They have a coral restoration statue and you can swim over to the nearby mangroves. We saw a lot of cool marine life while we were there! We got really lucky on the day we went to the Floating Bar. It was the day after the full moon and we found out that meant that the glow worms would be active. Glow worms look like bright green fireflies in the ocean. They would rise to the surface and we could clearly see them, it was amazing to witness. We were allowed to get in the water and snorkel with them and while we were swimming, you could see bioluminescent plankton glow as you moved your hands through the water. It was probably one of the coolest experiences I’ve had while here in Bocas!!
 
Sunday
On Sunday we had to get up really early because we went scuba diving. We spent the last few weeks getting certified, and Sunday was the day we could all go together as certified divers. The two dives were amazing, and we finally saw a shark (which we had been trying to see all semester!). It was a small nurse shark, resting on the bottom of the reef. After diving, we had lunch at Leaf Eaters, which is another place I recommend (the Big Fish sandwich is amazing). We spent the afternoon resting at the Center and getting things ready for our second week of sampling. For dinner, we went to Ciao Pizza. We’ve made it a tradition to eat at Ciao every Sunday. They also sell incredible chocolate bars made with real cacao, which are SO GOOD. We ended the night all cozy, piled up in my room watching a tv show until bed.
 

Photo by Kate Lucas
 
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Curious to learn a bit more about the SFS Panama Center? Click here to read about why we’re based there, our environmental research focus, how we connect and support the local community, and even take a tour of the Center.

Students and staff at the Center for Marine Resource Studis are helping to resolve this knowledge gap [about the mysterious Octopus Insularis].

The tropical western Atlantic Ocean is home to an astounding variety of underwater life, from the elegant corals that create the living habitat of reefs, to the thousands of colorful fishes and invertebrates that inhabit them. Cephalopods, the class of molluscs containing squid, nautilus, cuttlefish and octopus, are no exception. With their ability to change their skin color, pattern, reflectance and texture on a millisecond-to-millisecond basis, the octopus and squid that inhabit the western Atlantic are at once some of the most mesmerizing animals to be seen, yet often the hardest to find and to accurately identify. In fact, researchers are still trying to determine exactly how many species call the western Atlantic their home, and to work out the relationships among them.

The story of Octopus insularis bears this out. It is one of the most common octopuses in the region, yet it was long misclassified as O. vulgaris, a Mediterranean species. It wasn’t until 2008 that genetic analysis showed it to be distinct from O. vulgaris and it was given its own name. On top of that, it was more recently (2020) realized that a second separate species, O. americanus, also occurs in the same regions and looks so much like O. insularis that they are easy to confuse with each other. To make matters worse, many of the guidebooks to marine life for the western Atlantic still only list O. vulgaris.
 

Octopus briareus. Photo provided by C.E. O’Brien.
 

As a result of this long misclassification and confusion with another species, many basic life history facts about O. insularis are unknown, such as whether they are nocturnal (like O. vulgaris), diurnal (active during the day) or crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk). This lack of knowledge contrasts sharply with our understanding of the behavior of many reef fishes, for which volumes of literature exist documenting their habits and activity cycles. This is likely also due to the reclusiveness of O. insularis and their ability to blend in seamlessly with the background using their sophisticated camouflaging skin.

Students and staff at the CMRS are helping to resolve this knowledge gap. Utilizing minimally invasive underwater videography, we document O. insularis activity in and around their den for a 24-hour period. From these recordings, we build an average activity budget for the species and determine the times of day they are most active. This work can then serve as the basis for further behavioral analysis in the field, in particular by highlighting the times O. insularis is most alert and active, and thus the most appropriate time for performing behavioral experiments.

CMRS students and staff are also working to decode the secrets of octopus skin patterning. We are performing video analysis of O. briareus and Callistoctopus furvus footage taken at night in the shallow waters around South Caicos to determine the factors associated with each of the many distinct body patterns displayed by each species. Such work may one day help us “read” the intentions and perceptions of these octopuses as they move through their environment.
 

Callistoctopus furvus. Photo provided by C.E. O’Brien.
 
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Curious to learn a bit more about the SFS Turks and Caicos Center? Click here to read about why we’re based there, our environmental research focus, how we connect and support the local community, and even take a tour of the Center.