Andrew Makari's right hand holds a long bolt, with which he is striking at a corroded brown object in his other hand. With time, one hears the clink of metal against metal – a sound that brings a smile to Makari’s weary face. “It’s steel,” he says, knowing that a kilogramme of the metal will fetch $350 from the scrape metal dealer only a stone throw away. Makari’s hope is not in vain for there is a lot of unpolished scrape metal lying around him – just as there are equally a lot of people with endless pieces of scrape metal surrounding them in the metal garbage lot near Olivine Industries in the Willowvale industrial area that has become their workplace. Dumping sites in Harare can be associated with many unpleasant thoughts – rotting paper, rotting food, and dumped babies. Rusted scrape metal – and the latter has become a source of income for many residents in areas surrounding the metal dumping ground. Steep ditches, reminiscent of those left by gold panners, now characterise th...