The picture that I meant to take of Mandla

These are sad times in South Africa. And though I mostly feel quite distant from the terrible violence against our African neighbours, I have been touched by the tragedy in one, odd way.

For the past two years, a man name Mandla has rung my bell every Monday morning to see if I have any recyclables for him. I first saw him digging through garbage in my neighbourhood during one of my jogs. He was collecting white office paper, so I told him to stop by my house, since I always separate the good white stuff, which fetches a higher price. Ever since, he has made a weekly stop here. And as prices have risen for other commodities, I have given him cartloads of plastic bottles and cans in addition to paper.

I had just decided that it was time to write about Mandla on GreenerHouse. I liked the topic, because I believe that developing this kind of relationship creates meaning out of recycling, spares the collector the indignity and effort of digging through rubbish, and could save homeowners trips to the recycling depot. I had even decided that I would call the post “Meet Mandla.” I was going to take his picture and place it on the website.

It was going to be a good week for Mandla, because I had worked on the cleanup crew for my daughter’s matric dance and had rescued bins full of PET plastic bottles, aluminium cans and steel (tin) cans. I had them waiting at the gate for him. When Mandla didn’t show up last Monday, I didn’t think much of it. But now he hasn’t rung my bell for two weeks, so I know that last week was not a good week for Mandla. We had never discussed his origin; we mostly talked about the prices of various recyclable commodities. But it now seems clear that he was a Zimbabwean. In my experience, most of the hawkers who collect recyclables on foot are from other African nations.

I hope that Mandla is safe, wherever he is, and that someone is giving him lots of white paper to sell.

Any golden white elephants—or rhinos—in your house?

In recent days, the gold price is breaking record after record. Add to that the somewhat weaker rand, and your jewelry box is starting to look like, well, a gold mine.

If you decide to take some profits on a rarely worn bracelet, as I recently did, the environment will benefit even more than your bank account. In November, dozens of South African corporations released data on their greenhouse-gas emissions as part of the South African Carbon Disclosure Project. They should be commended for their effort. Knowing your emissions is a critical first step toward reducing them. Two of the companies were gold miners, and their disclosure came as a shock to me. For each ounce of gold produced by Harmony Gold Mining, 2.1 tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. Yes, read it again, 2.1 tons of CO₂ for an ounce of gold. If you don’t believe me, see here.

AngloGold Ashanti had significantly lower figures, probably because it is less dependent on deep underground mines in South Africa, but the average of the two companies still comes out at 1.14 tons per troy ounce. This is not far off from a figure I got using data for the South African gold mining industry as a whole in the year 2000, 1.3 tons of CO₂ per troy ounce for electricity usage alone.

Using the 1.14 figure, by my calculations, I would have to drive my Honda Jazz from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back about three times to emit the carbon dioxide contained in a Krugerrand. (And I’m leaving aside the water pollution, local air pollution, and landscape scarring that gold mining causes.)

This might give you some pause when your anniversary next comes up, but it does make the current high gold price a perfect opportunity to recycle some gold and prevent further mining emissions. I found a medal that had no real sentimental value and my wife found a clunky bracelet that she hadn’t worn in more than 20 years. Yesterday, a gold and coin dealer paid me more than R4,000 for the two, thereby saving 783 kilograms of CO₂ using to the Anglo/Harmony average. It was like buying a carbon offset, except I got paid for it. I’m considering going back with a pair of silver candlesticks.

I remember that driving all the way to Bedfordview just to sell a little gold gave me a twinge of green guilt. Not anymore. I now realize I could have driven all the way to Bulawayo.