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Flora Fadzai Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter
SCRAPYARD owners are making a killing by buying scrap metal from collectors for resale to companies that require it for recycling.

Some residents move around the city collecting the scrap and sometimes abandoned cars that would have been involved in accidents and are a write-off are not spared.

Others go into residential homes to negotiate for old cars parked at home.

In an interview, Mr Zenzele Khumalo, a scrapyard owner in the Kelvin Industrial Area, said he buys scrap metal from different people including scavengers who live at the Ngozi Mine dumpsite.

He said sometimes he gets metal weighing 700kg in a day.

“We buy metal from different people ranging from companies to individuals.

We buy most of our metal from Ngozi Mine residents. Some people come with their metal here at the scrapyard.

We then weigh it to determine its worth.

Aluminium usually has more value, so if someone gets more aluminium they are guaranteed good money,” said Mr Khumalo.

He said they sell the metal to Chinese companies around Kelvin.

“After buying the metal from the collectors we sell it to the Chinese.

The Chinese then melt the metal and recycle it to make new items,” he said.

A scrap metal collector, Mr Emmanuel Mathe, said he gets his metal from old cars that would have been deserted, old can bottles, among others.

“I get the scrap metal from different places.

It could be metal lying on the roadside that everyone sees as useless, to cans and old cars that people might have deserted due to it being destroyed without any hope of repairing it,’’ he said.

Mr Mathe said he has been in the business for the past three years and he has been able to pay school fees for his children.

“I have been in the business for the past three years now.

I started back in 2019.

I had just lost my job back in South Africa and decided to come back home and look for a living.

A friend of mine introduced me to scrap metal collection and I have been doing it since.

I have to admit business was better back then when I started.

We used to get better payments for the metals as compared to now.

I use the money I get from the scraps to send my children to school and sustain our living standards,” he said.

“After collecting the metal I take it to Kelvin.

There are scrapyards around those areas which buy these metals.

After buying the metal they weigh it to determine the price one should get.

They normally say a kilogramme of the metal costs $0,13c, so the bigger the size of your metal the larger the amount of money you will get.”

Mr Mathe said business days are not all the same as at times he can collect metal that is over a 100kg in a day and go home with good money, but sometimes gets as little as 20kg a day.

“I would have spent the whole day collecting metal for nothing.

This also gives me a loss if I would have hired some people to help me push the cart ferrying the metals”, Mr Mathe said.

Chinese proprietors of companies that buy scrap metal in Kelvin refused to comment.