The Spread of The Profession of Collecting “Empties and Scraps” Among Many Families.
The crisis that Syria has been going through has left negative effects on the living conditions of many families. As a result, many households have been forced to work in professions that were not previously considered in order to secure a livelihood amid rising waves of high costs that have affected various aspects of life.
The profession of collecting "empties and scraps" has witnessed a widespread prevalence as it began to attract many. Strangely, the majority of those who take it up are children, youth and women.
Deir Ezzor province ranked first in terms of the large spread of the “scraps” collection profession. The province has harbored this phenomenon for nearly a century, and it has professionals like any other profession, most of whom are from outside the province. These people used to be called "Hawajin".
The word "Hawaj" came from collecting odds and ends, bartering them at the time in exchange for "candy" or "sweets", among other things. This rag picker would get tools and expired materials. He rents a house on the outskirts of the city where he puts what he collects, then sorts it out, and later ships it to the city of Aleppo, where factories receive it for recycling.
He was also called "Dawwar", and in a sarcastic colloquial term in the local dialect in Deir Ezzor, he is called "Abu Al-Daraqe’”, which means the person who roams around in different places to display his goods and sell them among people.
The term "scraps" is usually expressed in the local dialect in the province as “Hajiyat”, which consists of materials that have been collected from cartons, plastic cans, old rags, bags, tanks, and so on.
Perhaps this profession has become a source of living for many families in Deir Ezzor province, despite its disastrous effects, especially on children, from risks, harassment and extortion cases for their efforts, not to mention the effects on those who dropped out of school and did not complete their education, and its repercussions on society as a whole.
