Earning their daily bread
Individual collectors of scrap who mainly come from Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian (RAE) communities have a hard time surviving solely from this activity, although this kind of business is quite profitable for collection companies. Most of these companies are not licensed by the Ministry of Environment. Members of these RAE communities collect waste night and day, and they receive roughly five Euros a day for the work. Almost all residents of the two neighborhoods where RAE communities live collect waste, and this is their everyday activity. Unlike the residents of these two neighborhoods who collect waste from containers, hundreds of people collect waste at a landfill in Gjilan, with tents on site where they spend a lot of time. Among everyday collectors there are children as well, and many of them had to either drop out, or not enroll in primary school because of their work
