Traders scrap over Jamaican metal

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By Nick Davis BBC News, Jamaica

There is big money to be made in scrap metal in Jamaica.

Any scrap metal can be converted into cashThe trade is an important source of foreign exchange for the country, worth $100m (£50m) last year.

But the thriving trade is starting to have an effect on the island's infrastructure as thieves cash in by cutting down telephone cables and uprooting underground water pipes.

For many people across the island, collecting metallic waste to sell has become a cottage industry.

Job opportunities here can be scarce, so for many it has been a good way to earn a living.

Most of the trade is based around Riverton, a poor inner-city community on the outskirts of the capital, Kingston.

The area is built on the edge of a landfill site, where refuse trucks thunder in and vehicles of every description drop off scrap metal to be weighed for export.

Bad reputation

My cab driver nervously asks which part of the dump I want. The place used to have a very bad reputation and in the minds of many that has not gone away.

The area is a hive of activity. Men and women, young and old separate the scrap into piles of steel, iron, copper, and a mystery metal everyone is calling loom. It takes me a few seconds to figure out that they mean aluminium.

Sacks that once held foodstuffs are now crammed with bits of twisted metal. The site is huge, the landfill stretches into the horizon and what appears to be a mountain in the shimmering heat of the distance is just part of the dump.

Scrap metal has become a cottage industry in JamaicaIt is so big it straddles two parishes on the island.

Carl McLeod, an exporter of scrap metal, started work as a teenager on the dump and has made his fortune from it.

"Old things that people don't want. Old truck bodies, truck parts, iron. Put it this way, your garbage is my riches," he said.

The trade helped to clear up parts of the countryside, with discarded metal goods being swept up and sold.

Among objects which used to turn up at the yard were the giant copper kettles or boilers used for generations to process sugar cane. These are now becoming scarce.

Crime wave

And as demand for metal rises, some people are finding another way to get their hands on it - stealing it from the streets.

Howard Mollison, from the telecoms firm Cable and Wireless Jamaica, said that thefts of telephone cables were costing them cash and customers.

"We are pretty much aware that it's being sold as scrap metal which is shipped off to various destinations across the world," he said.

Dealers are being asked not to buy stolen metal"Over the past year we have had more than 140 cases of cable theft which has cost more than $2m to restore the service."

As you drive along the roads of rural Jamaica, you often see cut cable hanging down from telephone posts. The disruption can mean months without service for some customers but when new wires go up they sometimes vanish before they have been fully installed.

Last October, the government stepped in to deal with the problem. It suspended all exports and drew up new rules, which required people in the industry to have export licenses.

The packing of containers was to be done in fenced-off areas and shipments supervised by customs officer.

Organised crime

At first the new measures seemed to work and there was a dramatic decrease in thefts. But in the last few months the number of incidents has risen again.

Even worse, criminals have become more organised, with heavy plant machinery being used to dig up sewage and water pipes.

Karl Samuda, Jamaica's trade minister, last month suspended exports, arguing that then thefts are hampering the island's economic development.

Communities have grown up around the trade"It's just a matter of scrapping Jamaica - they are scrapping the country of its infrastructure and if nothing is done to curtail that we'll be left with no meaningful infrastructure made out of steel, copper or brass or anything that is attractive to the trade," he said.

Exports resumed last Tuesday but only by scrap yards that can show they are free of stolen metal.

In the past, customs inspections took place by the roadside. The metal would be separated and packed where it was dropped off. Now the government is pushing for central sites to be set up where containers can be packed in a more controlled environment.

Tense atmosphere

In such a deprived area like Riverton where jobs are scarce, working in the scrap metal trade is about the only option.

When business was good, I had hung out with a group of men who huddled in a hut made of scrap for shade. They talked about how things had changed for the better.

However, when I returned to the dump during the halt on exports things were a lot more tense. They spoke of the boredom and of the lack of cash that was making some say that if the jobs disappeared the violence could return.

"Please open it back up now because right now the youths are thinking about the gun and when the scrap metal goes on they don't get involved with the gangs," one of them told me. "They eat, drink and go to dances and there's no gun fire. It is scrap metal we live off."

Carl McLeod says traders have to stop buying stolen metal.

"I used to buy scrap metal but I don't buy it any more," he said. "I'm asking all the people in the industry, let's come together and rid the system of the illegal stuff going on. Money has been made already and there's still money to be made"