In Mali, donkeys help with the fight against waste

In the Malian capital of Bamako, donkey carts driven by young men including 19-year-old Arouna Diabate play a vital role battling the fast-growing city’s waste problem.

Every morning before dawn, Diabate hitches his donkey to a cart and sets off on his rounds, going door-to-door to collect household garbage that he delivers to a local waste transfer station for a monthly salary of about £27.

Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world and the authorities struggle to provide adequate public services in the capital. Bamako’s population more than quadrupled from the mid-1970s to 1.8 million as of 2009, according to census data.

The population boom has made the issue of waste disposal in Bamako more acute, requiring Diabate’s boss, Moustapha Diarra, to deploy eight donkey carts in his district instead of the two he managed a decade ago.