Fabric scraps and rubish collectors

An evening walk around the older parts of Istanbul is a wonderful thing and, recently, I was lucky enough to wander through the garment district with some friends. The whole industry manufacture industry, from component suppliers to rubbish collectors, was on display. There were, of course, many shops with garments on display.

As in many emerging economies, the a lot of production chain was on display. Workers could be seen through doorways sewing together garments and shoes. Shops displays presented the full range of commodities needed for manufacture, cloth, buttons, zips, soles of shoes, insoles, etc. Manufacture and retail does leave a lot of rubbish though.

Collecting the rubbish is an important job, ask anyone who has lived through a strike by rubbish collectors. I suspect the job is much less unpleasant in the garment industry than in, say, the food and entertainment area, if only because these fabric scraps didn’t smell.

On this team there were three workmen, and one other person either leaving rubbish or sorting through rubbish others had left.

Fabric scraps filled the skip as well as the huge bags on the other side of the street.