Waste Pickers’ Most Common Demands

Struggles are shaped by local contexts, but this list represents the most common demands of waste pickers around the world.

• Authorized access to waste materials
• Payment for environmental services
• Health care and social protection schemes
• Economical and technical support to unions, cooperatives/associations and micro-enterprises to enable them to enter new niches
• Provision of infrastructure for sorting, baling etc.
• Implementation of educational campaigns to help change public attitudes towards waste pickers and also to promote the segregation of recyclables
• Extending legal frameworks that enable the hiring of waste pickers as service providers
• Provision of identity cards
• Preferential rights to work on source segregation schemes
• Clear tendering processes for waste collection so that waste pickers can be bidders
• Equitable distribution of profits in the recycling chain
• Credit lines for equipments and other materials
• Provision of work facilities: sorting warehouses, crèches (day care services), etc.
• Programs for the eradication of child labour
• Participatory channels: platforms for joint planning and implementation of solid waste programs
• Capacity building courses on organizing, technical aspects of recycling, etc.