World of Informal Waste Pickers: Challenges, Recognition, and the Path Forward

Context:

This editorial is based on the news “Understanding The World Of The Informal Waste Picker” which was published in The Hindu. On March 1, International Waste Pickers Day, waste pickers across the world will pay homage to fellow pickers who were murdered in Colombia in 1992. 

Informal Waste Pickers in Waste Management and Plastic Recycling Globally

• Defined by ILO: The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines the informal sector in waste management as ‘individuals or small and micro-enterprises that intervene in waste management without being registered and without being formally charged with providing waste management services’. 
• Play a Crucial Role: These workers are the primary collectors of recyclable waste, playing a critical role in waste management and resource efficiency by collecting, sorting, trading and sometimes even reinserting discarded waste back into the economy. 
  • The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Pew Reports mentioned that in 2016 alone, informal waste pickers collected 27 million metric tonnes of plastic waste, preventing it from ending up in landfills or the ocean. 
  • As per the 2022 World Economic Forum report, globally, waste pickers collect and recover up to 60% of all plastic which is then recycled. 

Plight of Informal Waste Pickers: Hazards, Marginalization, and Urgent Calls for Recognition

• Hazardous Working Conditions: They collect between 60 kg to 90 kg of waste a day in an 8 to 10 hour span of time, often undertaking hazardous work without safety equipment. 
• Poor Health and Harassment: They face poor health, irregular work, low income and regular harassment. Their health issues include dermatological and respiratory health issues. They have to bear burning plastic fumes and consume water and air tainted by microplastics. 
  • The concerns are compounded by their subordinate position in the caste hierarchy. They suffer existential precarity. 
• No Recognition & Representation: Yet, playing a significant role, they face systemic marginalisation due to non-recognition, non-representation, and exclusion from social security schemes and legal protection frameworks.
  • Despite their crucial role in sustainable recycling, their work is rarely valued. 

• Concerning Data: Facing Exploitation, Health Risks, and Environmental Challenges

• • The Centre for Science and Environment: It reported that the informal waste economy employs about 0.5%–2% of the urban population globally. 
    • Many are women, children and the elderly, who are often disabled, are the poorest of the urban poor, and face violence and sexual harassment often. 
  • The Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18: It indicates that there are nearly 1.5 million waste pickers within India’s urban workforce, with half a million being women.
  • The Alliance of Indian Waste Pickers (AIW) 2023 Report: It states that private actors employ expensive machinery, offering competitive rates to waste generators, which marginalises informal pickers and forces them into hazardous waste picking. 
    • This worsens their health risks, compromises income, and lowers social status. 
  • The CPCB Report: January 6 is plastic overshoot day for India, a country that is already among the 12 countries responsible for 52% of the world’s mismanaged waste. 

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): Balancing Accountability, Inclusion Challenges

• Refers: Extended producer responsibility is a strategy to add all of the estimated environmental costs associated with a product throughout the product life cycle to the market price of that product, contemporarily mainly applied in the field of waste management. 
• Clarified Accountability: It transfers the responsibility of waste management from municipal authorities and holds commercial waste producers accountable. 
• Significance: EPR appears seemingly promising, with potential for social inclusion for waste pickers and other informal grassroots actors. 
• Challenges with EPR: No Clarity: As per Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), EPR redirects waste away from the informal sector, threatening large-scale displacement of informal waste pickers.
  • The AIW has observed that EPR guidelines in India identify several stakeholders, but it is unclear whether these stakeholders include informal waste pickers, or their representing organisations. 
  • No Inclusion: The Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 mandates the inclusion of waste pickers in municipal solid waste management systems. However, the EPR Guidelines 2022 have blatantly ignored the role of informal waste pickers in waste management and recycling.
  • The EPR mechanism holds producers responsible for plastic pollution, but only involves large recycling units, bypassing an entire workforce responsible for transformation of waste to recyclable material.

Way Forward:

• Need for a Binding Agreement: While endorsing the UN resolution to end plastic pollution, there is a need to create a legally binding agreement by 2024, the treaty must ensure a just transition for these workers.
• Updation in Legal Framework: Waste pickers possess traditional knowledge around handling waste, which could strengthen the EPR system and its implementation. India needs to rethink the formulation of EPR norms, while also addressing how to integrate millions of informal waste pickers into the new legal framework.