Organizing Informal Waste Pickers in Bengaluru, India

This case study reviews efforts to organize waste pickers in Bangalore city, Southern India by a network of non-governmental organizations.

Using a “top down” approach the network engaged with the municipality to have waste pickers recognized.

This effort has led to the first enumeration and registration initiative by an Indian urban local body and to the forming of a city-wide waste pickers’ and waste itinerant buyers’ membership-based organization called Hasirudala (meaning “green force”).