- Campus Life - Financial Aid By Ava Salitsky One the edge of
Pietermaritzburg, just off the Johannesburg-Durban highway, lies
a small, three-room building that houses groundWork, an
environmental justice organization that works throughout South
Africa. The director, Bobby Peek, says that GroundWork tries to
assist vulnerable and underprivileged people who are most
affected by environmental injustices. He sits in an eccentric
orange room describing how his agency functions. With each new
subject his excitement grows and his tone of voice becomes
louder and more animated. Groundwork has been working with the
waste pickers over the last two years. They make a livelihood by
taking recyclables off waste dumps and selling them to
recyclers. "People are making a living from recycling," says
Peek. On average, waste pickers earn R1,500 to R2,500 per week
($220 to $373). Waste pickers have fought for acknowledgment by
the government, but Peek says it has aggressively ignored their
input on how recycling could be integ