Concept Document: Integrating Waste Pickers

Grassroots Resilient Stories
Apr 10
7 min read

Concept Document: Integrating Waste Pickers into Government and Private Waste Management Systems

Introduction

Waste pickers, often marginalised and informal workers, play a crucial role in waste management across the world. They collect, sort, and recycle waste, contributing to reducing environmental pollution and promoting resource recovery. However, their work is typically underappreciated, underpaid, and lacks basic rights and protections.

This document proposes the inclusion of waste pickers in formal waste management processes, both in government systems and private waste management initiatives, highlighting the benefits and methods for their integration.

Makana in particular experiences inefficient state waste management and illegal dumping challenges. Accurate data regarding the contributions of waste pickers is not readily available. Private companies are tendered to manage the dumpsite but little community or stakeholder intervention or discussion has been implemented. The site also changes management every few years resulting in inconsistency in efforts to implement integration. Recycling Enterprises collect from waste pickers at very low rates.

Rationale for Inclusion

Waste pickers are already integral to the functioning of waste management systems. Including them in formal waste management systems—whether within government-run or private sector initiatives - offers several environmental, economic, and social benefits.

Environmental Benefits

Waste pickers play a key role in resource recovery by collecting and recycling materials such as plastics, paper, metals, and glass. These materials are diverted from landfills and incineration, leading to higher recycling rates and contributing to the creation of a circular economy. Moreover, by reducing waste going to landfills and incinerators, waste pickers help lower pollution levels, keeping the environment cleaner and healthier.

Economic Benefits

Waste pickers help lower the operational costs of waste management by conducting sorting and material recovery. Their work directly reduces the burden on formal waste management systems and can improve cost-effectiveness. In addition, formalizing

waste picking creates stable jobs, improved livelihoods, and boosts the recycling industry’s efficiency. As they often possess valuable skills in waste sorting and material recovery, waste pickers can make significant contributions to improving waste management outcomes. This also supplements the income of many people reliant on grants and increases employment.

Social and Legal Inclusion

The informal nature of waste picking leaves workers vulnerable to poor working conditions, exploitation, and social stigma. By formally integrating waste pickers into the waste management process, their work becomes legitimate, their rights are protected, and their access to social benefits—such as healthcare and social security—is ensured. This inclusion helps elevate their status and reduces the social discrimination they face.

Waste Picking in Numbers

Various studies have shown the impact that waste pickers have on both the informal economy and waste management in major cities in South Africa. More than double the number of people employed in the formal waste management industry work in informal waste management in major cities. Government departments have conservatively estimated that there could be as many as 62,000 waste pickers in the country, with about 40% working as trolley pushers.

The South African Waste Pickers Association claims to have 90,000 members across all nine provinces in 2022. It is estimated that more than 215,000 informal waste pickers are working at the heart of the nation’s recycling economy, recovering mostly paper and packaging waste from the service chain and introducing these secondary resources into the country’s value chain.

Reports show that in 2016 waste pickers “salvaged approximately 80% to 90% of post-consumer paper and packaging collected in South Africa for recycling and are the backbone of the current system that directs recyclables away from landfills and toward recyclers.” A survey conducted in Johannesburg, 8,000 pickers collected more recyclable material in 22 days than a major private enterprise’s recycling programme collected in two years. Informal waste pickers play a vital role in the recycling and management of waste.

According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, informal waste pickers collect 80 to 90 percent of all used packaging and paper that is recycled. Without them,

South Africa’s recycling economy would not exist and some of the landfills would have closed long ago. Less than 20 percent of households take part in consumer-focused recycling programmes while informal waste collectors are estimated to have diverted 82 percent of waste packaging material, amounting to approximately 1.47 million tonnes, from landfills in a single year.

These collectors or pickers have saved municipalities roughly R608 million (more if the cost of environmental impact is added), and all at no cost to the taxpayer. The work of informal waste pickers has saved South Africa at least R950-million in landfill space. This number has increased with an increase in e-waste.

How Can Waste Pickers Be Included?

In 2020, a model guideline to integrate informal waste pickers into South Africa’s mainstream waste economy was developed. However, it seems that provincial and local governments are slow to adopt the integration plans made at the national government level to improve the working conditions and livelihoods of informal waste pickers.

Integrating waste pickers into formal systems requires a multifaceted approach, involving legal recognition, training, infrastructure support, partnerships, and financial backing. Experts suggest that integration must occur at multiple levels.

“Integration starts with identifying, registering and documenting these waste pickers and their combined skills, and putting them to good use in the waste reclaiming sector, which they have constantly fed since reclaiming started getting traction in South Africa.

This would mean some sort of public and private partnership between the waste picker groups and worker cooperatives, with a mentorship facilitation process in place that can oversee and train these workers to enable them to grow within the waste management stream.

Instead of only reclaiming products, the idea is to support them in getting into a position where they can rework these materials into brand new proudly South African-made products that can be sold on the local market or international markets. Working your way up from just being a labourer, to being a part-owner in an industry that will just keep on growing.”

Practical Steps for Integration

Governments and private companies should issue legal identification cards or work permits for waste pickers, ensuring that they are recognized workers with rights and protections. Additionally, specific regulations should be implemented to guarantee fair wages, adequate safety measures, and workers' rights, in line with national labour laws.

To ensure waste pickers are equipped to work safely and effectively within formal systems, they must receive training in proper waste sorting, recycling techniques, and health and safety standards. This could include introducing waste pickers to modern technologies—such as mobile apps or RFID tags—that streamline waste management processes and improve efficiency.

Waste pickers require access to basic tools and infrastructure to perform their tasks more efficiently and safely. This includes providing necessary equipment such as gloves, masks, carts, and other safety gear. Additionally, waste pickers should be granted access to organized waste collection points, allowing them to operate systematically and in conjunction with formal waste management systems.

Governments can support waste pickers by including them in municipal waste management contracts. This collaboration would allow waste pickers to play a role in waste segregation, collection, and recycling. Private companies, too, can partner with waste pickers through waste management services or by involving them in corporate social responsibility initiatives focused on sustainability and waste reduction.

To enable waste pickers to improve their livelihoods, governments or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could provide access to microfinance systems or credit schemes.

These initiatives would help waste pickers invest in better equipment and formalize their operations. Furthermore, providing health insurance and social security benefits can significantly improve their quality of life and protect them from the risks associated with informal waste collection.

Public awareness campaigns are crucial to changing societal attitudes toward waste pickers. Educating citizens about the vital role these workers play in waste management can help reduce stigma and encourage support for their inclusion in formal systems. Additionally, local civil society and unions can advocate for policy reforms that recognise

the rights of waste pickers and promote their integration into formal waste management systems.

Waste Pickers Makhanda

A small group of waste pickers who work from the municipal dumpsite have been organised since 2017 under the name Waste Pickers Movement Makhanda. The unregistered organisation of 20 members began initiatives to cement their role in waste management around this time. The organisation emerged as a community-led initiative came to an end. The waste pickers filled the gap the company left.

Their activities involved lobbying the municipality for use of areas of the landfill for subsistence gardening; residing on the site during shifts to save on transport; safety equipment and health resources; support for obtaining ID documents; support in engaging with middlemen enterprises and changing public attitudes. To this end, they invited researchers to explore their role on their site. From this partnership, the organisation established an online presence in 2017; engaged in global platforms and media outlets; fundraised for a garden and established connections to well-established informal work support structures.

Conclusion

Integrating waste pickers into both government and private waste management systems offers numerous environmental, economic, and social benefits. By recognizing their contributions, providing necessary training, equipment, and social protection, and fostering collaboration with both public and private sector entities, waste pickers can become a formal and respected part of waste management systems. This approach will not only enhance the efficiency and sustainability of waste management but also improve the quality of life for waste pickers, foster a cleaner environment, and create a more inclusive and circular economy.

Organizing waste pickers into cooperatives improves their ability to access formal contracts and improves their bargaining power.
Public-private partnerships can help provide waste pickers with the resources, training, and support needed to operate safely and effectively within formal systems.
Training and capacity building are critical in ensuring waste pickers can work efficiently and meet the standards required by formal waste management systems.
Access to social services, such as healthcare and financial security, improves the quality of life for waste pickers and helps reduce the risks associated with informal waste picking.
Collaboration with NGOs has been vital in advocating for the rights of waste pickers and helping negotiate formal agreements with municipalities and private companies.