You don’t rummage through piles of garbage looking for recyclable items if you have other options in life. Waste pickers are pretty close to the bottom of the career prestige ladder. But they do provide a useful service, simultaneously reducing the volume of waste that goes into landfills and providing useful raw materials like glass, plastic, and paper to manufacturers.
A study released last week at the World Urban Forum in Medellín, Colombia, based on interviews with hundreds of waste pickers, street vendors, and home workers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, finds that all three types of workers “could make greater contributions if local policies and practices supported, rather than hindered, their work.” The study was performed by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (Wiego) and its partners in what’s known as the Inclusive Cities project.
Waste pickers are a prime example. Local governments often seem ambivalent about whether to support them or shut them down—for example, by trucking away waste and burying or burning it before anyone has a chance to pick through it.
via Study Released at World Urban Forum Shows Value of Waste Pickers – Businessweek.
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