As COP25 gets underway, our deep dive into two years of news coverage reveals that the green army of waste pickers leading urban recycling efforts deserves greater recognition for its efforts in solving one of the most pressing problems of our times.
Cities, particularly in the Global South, are bursting at the seams with challenges from overcrowding to lack of affordable housing to snarled traffic, and are in need of innovative ways forward now more than ever. Among the major issues they face in becoming “21st-century cities” is trash — and what to do about it. The solutions, however, often already exist.
From WIEGO’s work with waste pickers in Asia, Africa and Latin America, we know how informal recyclers can bring their masterful knowledge to improve urban recycling efforts and save municipalities money. Yet so often their value in the waste sector is ignored, sidelined and even undermined.
That’s why waste pickers are making themselves heard on the global stage. As climate change talks continue in Madrid at COP25, waste picker organizations are calling for their own important environmental efforts to be recognized. In addition to staging a march in the Spanish capital, they are participating in a parallel convening, the People’s Climate Summit, in Chile, where COP25 was originally to be held.
Among the major issues they face in becoming “21st-century cities” is trash — and what to do about it. The solutions, however, often already exist.
To coincide with the start of COP25, WIEGO’s Urban Policies Team analyzed over 500 news articles on waste pickers from six continents in four languages — English, Spanish, French and Portuguese — over the past 20 months.
The team set out to gain a better understanding of how waste pickers are being incorporated into 21st-century cities and found that as growing crises mount — from a dump in Delhi soaring to the height of the Taj Mahal to serious plastic pollution problems — waste pickers’ work continues to be essential in creating real and sustainable environmental and social change in global cities of the future.
Read God is My Alarm Clock: A Brazilian Waste Picker's Story.
Key Trend: Integrating Waste Pickers into Future Cities
In our analysis of hundreds of articles, we found that inclusion of waste pickers into municipal solid waste plans was a hot news topic — especially in countries where WIEGO team members and our network have been working for decades, a promising signal of the power of organizing, expanded research and better urban policies.
From WIEGO’s work with waste pickers ... we know how informal recyclers can bring their masterful knowledge to improve urban recycling efforts and save municipalities money.
Over 60 per cent of all media articles on waste pickers covered policies or organizational practices that led, or could lead, to the inclusion of waste pickers, particularly in India, Colombia and Brazil. Cities are in need of new ways forward and are increasingly recognizing how waste pickers can help them achieve sustainability goals and set them on track toward a better urban future.
In the sections below, we look more closely at key media coverage of waste picker integration across geographies.
Read more on waste-picker integration in WIEGO’s archives, including the Informal Economy Monitoring Study, focusing on waste pickers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Bogotá, Colombia; Pune, India.
India: Waste Pickers Innovating to Achieve Urban Targets
In India, waste picker organizations are increasingly recognized for their innovative approaches to advancing urban transformation.
SWaCH, a waste-picker cooperative in the city of Pune, received attention for the cooperative’s economic and environmental contributions (members recycle 1,000 tonnes of waste per day, preventing it from entering landfills). Another article shows how SWaCH has become a model for integrating informal sector workers in garbage collection while helping to reduce the marginalization of nearly 3,000 "untouchable” waste workers. An article featuring the Bangalore-based waste picker organization, Hasiru Dala, shows the power of organizing in improving municipal solid waste management.
Waste pickers’ work continues to be essential in creating real and sustainable environmental and social change in global cities of the future.
Positive coverage of these two waste picker organizations in two of India’s metropolises shows that Indian cities can integrate waste pickers into their future plans.
Latin America: Waste Pickers Continue to Fight
Waste pickers have made promising achievements in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Colombia, where WIEGO and partner membership-based organizations have been challenging status-quo thinking on informal workers for years. The media has captured many of these promising models for integration in the waste sector, as well as waste pickers’ continued fight for recognition.
The majority of stories we analyzed focused on highlighting policy or the importance of organizing in achieving the recognition of waste pickers’ work. In Mendoza City, Argentina, waste pickers were recognized as key players in the reduction of waste in the city.
Over 60 per cent of all media articles on waste pickers covered policies or organizational practices that led, or could lead, to the inclusion of waste pickers.
However, Latin America has faced increasing economic and political volatility, which has especially impacted the working poor. The continent’s deepening economic crisis, for example, has increased the numbers of waste pickers in Argentina as the country experiences an economic downturn.
In Colombia, waste pickers were able to take important steps forward in their ongoing quest for integration. For example, over the last 20 months, Colombian waste pickers have requested better conditions on municipal agreements, negotiated with the municipal government the delivery of a new warehouse to a waste pickers’ cooperative, and joined together to create a company to improve their working conditions.
SWaCH, a waste-picker coorperative in the city of Pune ... recycle 1,000 tonnes of waste per day.
Also in Colombia, as of August 1, 2019, approximately 200 organizations of waste pickers are in the process of formalization through a municipal payment system. With this important step, they will gain an economic incentive for their contribution to increasing recycling and solid waste management in the country.
In Itaúna, Brazil, the waste pickers’ cooperative, COOPERT, recently received the "Best Practices in Local Management" award from Caixa Econômica Federal for sustainably impacting the quality of life in their communities. COOPERT has been innovating in other areas, too, including tackling gender equality.
COOPERT is the home base of MNCR leader Madalena Duarte, one of the coordinators of WIEGO-MNCR Gender and Waste Project. Watch a video with Madelena.
Waste pickers save municipalities money and increase recycling
Another promising media trend was that waste pickers are being seen as change agents and that working with them actually makes good environmental and economic sense.
An article from South Africa highlighted how waste pickers are key to the recycling industry while another also recognized that waste-pickers collect as much as 80 per cent of waste in South Africa.
The Latin America press documented how waste pickers are the invisible key piece in the Peruvian circular economy; how approximately 2,650,000 tons of waste is collected annually by waste pickers in Bogota; and how Brazilian waste pickers are responsible for collecting 90 per cent of the country’s recyclable waste.
Continued fight for recognition
While waste pickers have made headway, the battle for full recognition is never complete. In Johannesburg, waste pickers marched to be recognized. Tunisia's waste pickers are calling on the government to acknowledge their contributions as they recycle two-thirds of the country’s plastic waste without official status.
In Ecuador, the hard, unrecognized work of waste pickers continues to go unacknowledged, and in Argentina, waste pickers are demanding an ordinance that recognizes and dignifies their activities.
Waste Pickers Tackling Plastic Waste Crisis
One of the most worrisome emerging topics affecting not only waste pickers but every one of us is the plastic waste crisis. Waste pickers have a key role to play in helping to tackle this complicated issue, but many hurdles remain.
The growing plastic crisis and China’s plastic ban are bringing new challenges to waste pickers in poorer countries. Indian cities, for example, are drowning in plastic waste, increasing the need for municipalities to see the role waste pickers can play in helping to solve it. A new report from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives takes a look at how Southeast Asian countries are struggling to manage higher volumes of plastic waste as a result of China's ban on imports of mixed recyclable plastics [..] “the lack of an international regime governing the trade in plastic waste is leaving waste pickers at the bottom of the ladder to deal with the environmental pollution and health risks of consumers on the other side of the world.”
Latin America has faced increasing economic and political volatility, which has especially impacted the working poor.
Also, many developed countries are exporting their post-consumer plastic waste to typically poorer countries. For example, Agbogbloshie in Ghana is home to the world’s largest e-dump, causing new challenges for the waste sector and for waste pickers.
In May 2019 countries around the world signed on to a UN plan to reduce the flow of plastic waste to developing countries. Although there have been signs of some companies making attempts to tackle the problem, these have been described by campaigners as a drop in the ocean.
The good news is that new types of solutions to the plastic-waste challenge are being considered and implemented across the globe — from scientists at the USA’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) devising plans to fight ocean plastic to Africa’s global policy experts proposing that customers should pay a deposit on plastic bottles to plastic bans across the world, with 127 countries now regulating plastic bags.
In Colombia, as of August 1, 2019, approximately 200 organizations of waste pickers are in the process of formalization through a municipal payment system.
In India, Nestlé is going door to door in the Himalayas to comply with the country’s strict new waste-curbing rules. Also, the Indian government is looking into monetary incentives for waste pickers and an environmental tax on plastics. Cities such as Delhi are even contemplating paving their roads with plastic.
Initiatives by private companies have been popping up to help battle a plastic emergency of their own making. As part of their Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programmes, major corporations, such as Danone, Tetra Pak, Veolia and Nestlé, are leading a global scheme to reduce plastic waste. They claim that this move will put a value on the environmental services provided by waste pickers in countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia. Others, such as The Body Shop initiative in Bangalore, India, are recognizing the importance of working directly with waste pickers as part of their EPR efforts.
With growing concerns and complications around plastic pollution, WIEGO launched a new initiative this year, Reducing Waste in Coastal Cities through Inclusive Recycling (ReWCC) Project, to document and build the capacity of waste picker organizations in tackling ocean waste pollution in four cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The project is developing a unique methodology for assessing waste pickers’ contributions in minimizing greenhouse gas.
Another promising media trend was that waste pickers are being seen as change agents and that working with them actually makes good environmental and economic sense.
Read WIEGO team member Sonia Dias’ ideas for how waste pickers can be included in the new circular economy and Taylor Cass Talbott’s op-ed in Scientific American on how waste pickers are tackling ocean plastic waste.
Sustainability and Livelihoods Go Hand-in-Hand
Reviewing nearly two years of news confirms a growing understanding of waste pickers role in urban systems. This positive turn acknowledges how waste pickers improve recycling rates, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation — one of the most pressing concerns of our time.
An integrated and inclusive waste sector has the potential to advance social change beyond environmental benefits. The media trends show examples of cities where waste is being framed as an opportunity to meet urban strategic priorities, including building inclusive economies that create jobs, facilitate social mobility, improve governance, protect the environment and promote sustainability and social justice.
The battle for full recognition is never complete. In Johannesburg, waste pickers marched to be recognized. Tunisia's waste pickers are calling on the government to acknowledge their contributions.
However, there is a continued need to deepen the understanding that “ecological change” is embedded in complex, interdependent technological and socio-economic systems. To improve the connection between sustainability and livelihoods, inclusive solid waste systems need to be designed with deliberate policies that favour livelihoods as the key to achieving human and economic development while protecting the environment.
Inclusive solid waste management systems can also positively impact Sustainable Development Goal targets and national and local goals. For example, if Thailand is to meet its laudable commitment of 100 per cent recycling by 2030, it is essential to integrate the country's informal waste workers into the plan to ensure efficient and effective waste management at the scale required.
In Chile, several municipalities have received a subsidy of USD $76,000 from the Solidarity and Social Investment Fund (Fosis) as part of a pilot project that seeks to contribute to the care of the environment and the inclusion of waste pickers. The move shows that serious efforts to protect the environment and achieve SDG targets require investment in designing inclusive solid waste systems.
An integrated and inclusive waste sector has the potential to advance social change beyond environmental benefits.
WIEGO’s urban advocacy and research, grounded in our Focal Cities, provides good examples of innovative and inclusive practices. These models show that progress is not only possible but happening. Creating more inclusive, 21st-century cities — as our news analysis shows — has a long way to go to become a reality, but a more equitable future relies on new legal and policy frameworks that includes integrating informal waste pickers into cities’ waste management systems. Only then will we have both environmental and equitable cities for all.
This article is part of an on-going series to monitor and analyze the news on WIEGO’s key worker groups — street vendors, waste pickers, domestic workers and home-based workers — to track global trends as they happen. Using WIEGO’s Global Monitoring System (GMS), which systematically curates informal economy news and to date has over 5,500 waste pickers news articles, we reviewed over 500 articles in four languages — English, French, Portuguese and Spanish — from six continents to gain insights into the global reality. Our goal is to provide insights to better inform local and national actions, global solidarity for waste pickers and better policymaking to ensure that cities of the future are cities for all.
Feature photo: Waste pickers at the landfill in Accra, Ghana, root through the garbage for recyclables. Photo: Dean Saffron
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