Waste Picker - Waste Picker Organizing

Waste Picker Organizing

Traditionally, scholars assumed that informal workers such as waste pickers could not collectively organize due to structural barriers such as lack of legal protection, widely dispersed worksites, porous borders to their profession, a culture of independence and individualism, lack of institutional experience, and lack of money and time to build organizations. Nonetheless, in recent decades waste pickers across Latin America, Asia, and Africa have begun collectively organizing to win a place within formal recycling systems.

Waste pickers use many organizational formats including cooperatives, associations, companies, unions, and micro-enterprises. Despite the differences in format, most of these organizations share three primary purposes. First, by pooling capital, establishing microenterprises, and forming partnerships with business and government, waste collectors increase their selling power. Second, by securing uniforms, safety equipment, and work permits, cooperatives increase workplace dignity and safety. And third, by demanding recognition and compensation from the state for their environmental and economic contributions, cooperatives increase members’ political might. These three functions—political influence, workplace dignity and safety, and increased earnings—are mutually reinforcing, like legs on a stool.

Some waste pickers have created "women’s only" organizations, which seek to combat gender-based discrimination at worksites and in communities. A study in Brazil indicates that women are heavily overrepresented even in coed organizations, making up 56% of the membership despite the fact that they represent only a third of the total waste picking population.

Beginning in the 1990s, waste picker organizations in many parts of the world began uniting into regional, national, and transnational coalitions to increase their political voice and economic leverage. In March 2008, delegates from 30 countries gathered in Bogotá, Colombia for the first World Conference (and Third Latin American Conference) of Waste Pickers (WIEGO 2008). One of the key issues discussed was the global trend of privatization and concentration of waste management systems. Normally, privatization is thought of as the handover of government functions to the private sector, but in this case, privatization often means the transference of services formerly provided by informal waste collectors to private firms. As waste streams have expanded due to increased consumption, the waste management industry is becoming increasingly lucrative. Governments around the world are granting private companies monopolies on waste management systems, meaning that the cooperatives’ survival hinges on building political and economic alliances needed to win contracts—often an uphill battle given authorities’ distrust of waste collectors and the cooperatives’ lack of capital for modern machinery.