On the water with Myanmar’s ‘river cleaners’

MA YU launches her makeshift polystyrene boat into a Yangon creek for another day of trawling the filthy waters for plastic and tin cans with her team of “river cleaners”.

Around 10 others join her in the dawn light, driven to work the foetid grey-brown murk of Pazundaung creek by the economic crisis that has gripped Myanmar since the 2021 military coup.

They gather recyclable materials to sell to traders, their only source of income since losing their jobs after the putsch that upended the economy and sparked widespread unrest.

“There was no job for me on the land, and I’m responsible for my children and my husband’s healthcare,” 36-year-old Ma Yu told AFP. Her cheeks and forehead were daubed with sandalwood thanakha paste, popularly used in Myanmar to ward off the blazing sun.

“So I rented some polystyrene sheets and I went onto the creek with my neighbour. On the first day we managed to collect some plastic and cans to sell. We were happy,” she said.

Myanmar’s economy has been battered by the fallout of the coup, with more than a million people losing their jobs, according to the International Labour Organization.

Ma Ngal, 41, came to the river after losing her job selling vegetables and fish at a Yangon stall. Her husband, a carpenter, was also unable to find regular work.

“I didn’t tell my parents and family members that we are doing this work,” she said. “But they found out, and I had to explain to them that I’m doing this for my family.”

On a good day, a picker can find rubbish worth 30,000 kyat (S$13.28), but more often they take home about S$4.

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Kyu Kyu Khine, who used to collect rubbish from Yangon’s streets, said there were “lots of plastic, cans and bottles on the creek” before the pickers started working there.

They try to time their working hours with the tides, floating downstream in search of more rubbish when it ebbs, and riding it back upstream at the end of a shift. But the tidal surges can be treacherous, said Ma Yu, who was knocked off her boat on one of her early forays.

“Sometimes I think that if something happens to me, I’m all alone here, and I can’t do anything,” she said.

The waters carry regular reminders of the breakdown of order in Yangon, where residents say crime is surging in the aftermath of the coup. Ma Yu said the pickers would regularly see dead bodies floating on the water.

“It’s not an easy job but... the important thing for me is that my children don’t starve,” she said.

Her fellow picker Ma Ngal said there were some lighter moments: “Some people joke with us when they see us working. They say ‘here come the municipal team, they know how to clean up the river’.” AFP