Major Occupational Groups:

Waste Collectors

Informal Recycling Around the World: Waste Collectors

Waste collectors form a small but vital part of the informal economy. These workers—men, women, and children—make a living collecting, sorting, recycling, and selling the valuable materials thrown away by others. In nearly every city of the developing world, thousands can be found collecting household waste from the curbside, commercial and industrial waste from dumpsters, and litter from the streets, as well as canals and other urban waterways. Others live and work in municipal dumps—as many as 20,000 people in Calcutta, 12,000 in Manila, and 15,000 in Mexico City. 1

THE BENEFITS OF INFORMAL WASTE COLLECTION

Informal waste collectors perform an essential role in the economies and societies of developing countries. The benefits created by informal waste collection include:

• Contribution to public health and sanitation. In the fast-growing cities of the developing world, informal waste collection is the only way that waste gets removed from the many neighborhoods not served by municipal authorities. Third World municipalities only collect between 50 and 80 percent of the refuse generated in their cities. 2
  
  
• Employment and a source of income for poor people. The World Bank estimates that one percent of the urban population in developing countries earns a living through waste collection and/or recycling; 3 in the poorest countries, up to two percent do so.4 A significant number are women, and, in some cases, children.
  
  
• Provision of inexpensive recycled materials to industry. This reduces the need for expensive imports. The Mexican paper industry, for example, depends on wastepaper to meet about 74 percent of its fiber needs, and buys cardboard collected by Mexico’s cartoneros at less than one-seventh the price it would pay for market pulp from the U.S .5
  
  
• Reduction in municipal expenses. Waste collectors reduce the amount of waste that needs to be collected, transported and disposed of with public funds—in Indonesia, for example, by one-third. And in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kanpur, Karachi, and Manila, informal waste collectors save each city at least US$23 million a year in costs for waste management and raw material imports. 6
  
  
• Contribution to environmental sustainability. In many cities, informal recycling is the only kind of recycling that occurs at all. It decreases the amount of virgin materials used by industry, thereby conserving natural resources and energy while reducing air and water pollution. It also reduces the amount of land that needs to be devoted to dumps and landfills.

HOSTILE SOCIETIES, HAZARDOUS WORK

Despite the considerable economic and social benefits they produce, waste collectors usually operate in hostile social environments. Public authorities often treat them as nuisances, embarrassments, or even criminals. They tend to have low social status and face public scorn, harassment, and, occasionally, violence.

Waste collectors are also vulnerable to exploitation by the middlemen who buy recoveredwaste material from them before selling it to industry. Waste collectors in some Colombian ,Indian, and Mexican cities can receive as low as 5% of the price industry pays for recyclables; middlemen pocket the rest. 7 Accordingly, waste collectors generally have low incomes, and oftenlive in deplorable conditions, lacking access to water, sanitation, and other basic infrastructure.
As a result of their poor living conditions and the nature of their work, waste collectors face tremendous health and safety risks, including:

• Exposure to the elements (extreme temperatures, wind, rain, and sun)
  
• Exposure to dangerous waste, including toxic substances such as lead and asbestos,as well as blood, fecal matter, animal carcasses, broken glass, needles, and sharp metal objects
  
• Exposure to diseases transmitted by vermin, flies, and mosquitoes
  
• Back and limb pain, skin irritation and rashes, and specific high risk of tuberculosis, bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, dysentery, and parasites.

It comes as no surprise, then, that high infant mortality rates and low life expectancies are common in waste collector communities. In Mexico City, for example, where overall life expectancy is 69 years, dumpsite waste collectors live for an average of 39 years. 8 The community of waste collectors in Port Said, Egypt, has an infant mortality rate of one in three. 9

ORGANIZING AMONG WASTE COLLECTORS

The good news is that, when organized, waste collectors can and do raise their income, their social standing, and their self-esteem. There is a growing organization of waste collectors into trade unions, cooperatives, and associations, especially in Latin America, and to a lesser extent in Asia.

Workers’ cooperatives in several Latin American cities have successfully cut middlemen out of the recycling chain, raised members’ incomes dramatically (sometimes well above the minimum wage), secured social services like medical care, and contracted with municipalities to provide waste management services.

In some countries, national alliances have been formed. However, organizations have had little opportunity to interact or come together globally, and the vast majority of waste collectors remain unorganized, unrepresented, and unprotected. Much work still needs to be done to strengthen and support waste collectors’ organizations worldwide.

COMMON WASTE COLLECTOR DEMANDS

Below is a list of common demands made by waste collector organizations.

1. Identification, recognition and registration (identify cards).
   
2. Right to work/ have access to waste.
   
3. Provision of facilities for collection and sorting of waste – set aside sorting sites to sort without harassment.
   
4. Provision of sites to sell waste (“cash for trash”).
   
5. Sanitary and storage facilities.
   
6. Health care and social security provisions.
   
7. Credit/loan facilities.
   
8. Granting of rights to collect scrap for recycling (linked to ID cards).
   
9. Organise house to house collections through waste collector organisations – first preference.
   
10. Where outsourcing to private companies should be asked to employ waste pickers on first priority basis. (otherwise lose their livelihoods).
    
11. Scrap dealers/traders and recycling enterprises to contribute through a levy to contributory provident fund/leave/insurance (where tripartite boards or other provisions).
    
12. Consultation/negotiation with waste collector organisations before initiating any disposal of solid waste schemes.
    
13. Provision of rest rooms, drinking water, toilet, crèche facilities at dumping grounds and landfill sites.
    
14. Child labour should not be allowed.
    
15. Institutionalising informal waste collectors into doorstep/other collection.
    
16. Encouragement and support for organisations of waste collectors- financial and non financial.

Photos by Bharatiya Kaban Mazdoor Adhikar (BKMA). On Labour Day 2007, thousands of informal waste collectors, wholesale junk dealers and recyclers protested against privitization in Delhi, India. To read more about BKMA, please click here to view their Labour Day press release.

 

UPCOMING CONFERENCE ON ORGANIZING INFORMAL WASTE COLLECTORS

WIEGO is facilitating global networking amongst informal waste collectors. WIEGO and partner organizations are organizing an upcoming international waste collector conference. For more information, email WIEGO Organization and Representation Programme Director Chris Bonner.

The Project Steering Committee includes the following individuals:

• Silvio Ruiz Grisales, Asociación Nacional de Recicladores de Colombia
  
  
• Ezequiel Estay, Asociación de Recicladores, La Serena, Chile
  
  
• Ricardo Valencia, Avina Colombia
  
  
• Sonia Dias, Minas Gerais Waste and Citizenship Forum, Brazil, GWG
  
  
• Luiz Henriques, Movimento de Cartoneros de Brazil
  
  
• Severino Lima, Movimento de Cartoneros de Brazil
  
  
• Laxmi Narayan, KKPKP, India, CWG
  
  
• Laila Iskander, CID, Egypt, GWG
  
  
• Martin Medina, Institute of Global Environmental Strategies, Japan, CWG
  
  
• Chris Bonner, WIEGO Organisation and Representation Programme, South Africa
  
  
• Carmen Roca, WIEGO, Latin America Regional Coordinator, Peru
  
  
• Sharit Bhowmik, WIEGO Urban Policies Programme, India

In addition to the Project Steering Committee, there are also two Project Advisors

• Pat Horn, International Coordinator, StreetNet, South Africa and WIEGO Organisation and Representation Programme
  
  
• Renana Jhabvala, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and WIEGO Steering Committee Chair

NOTES:

1. Medina, Martin. 2005. "Waste Picker Cooperatives in Developing Countries." Paper prepared for WIEGO/ Cornell/ SEWA Conference on Membership-Based Organizations of the Poor, Ahmedabad, India, January 2005, p. 12

2. Ibid., p. 2

3. Medina, Martin. 2006. “Informal Recycling Around the World: Waste Collectors.”

4. Medina, 2005, p. 2

5. Ibid., p. 14

6. WIEGO.

7. Medina, 2005, p. 10

8. Medina, Martin. 2006. “Informal Recycling Around the World: Waste Collectors.”

9. Ibid.