Waste Pickers

Waste Pickers United

Globalization and Design
Maria Paula Salazar
Student id: 11527872g
Design Strategies

December 20/2011

Introduction
This report presents key factors in the research and analysis in the topic of the
informal sector of garbage collection focusing mostly on the people who make a living out
of this, waste pickers. As the value chain for recyclable materials hasspread into
international markets the waste pickers of the world remain marginalized and at the bottom
of the social pyramid depending on its trash as a means for daily survival. This deals with
individuals and families all over the world that live in a context of vulnerability because they
are seen as a problem, which calls to be solved by their eradication or privatization of the
garbagecollection informal sector, instead of thinking of ways to transform their labor and
dignify the conditions and quality of their work.
This issue will be analyzed in the local context taking into consideration financescapes;
arguing that waste pickers besides earning their small income add value to incomes of
waste producers as well as reduce, by large amounts, city expenditure on garbagecollection. Moving to the global context we see that within the mediascapes this small and
marginalized group of people can be elevated to the global stage and send a message to
the world about the importance of their work. This is currently being done with different
types of initiatives, some with the objective to create awareness and be a source of
information on the topic; other ways are throughunions, waste pickers associations and cooperatives that strive to improve their situation and are using means such as the internet,
global conferences or blogs to do so by creating networks around the world. There are also
initiatives leading into the design context that can play a fundamental role in finding
opportunities for improvement in the informal sector of garbage collection and ways forwaste pickers to perform their job in better conditions. Some examples of design projects
will be given to illustrate the ways in which this can be done. There are extended
opportunities in these three contexts for garbage collectors to improve and increase their
organizing efforts, which could result in new initiatives or new approaches to improve their
working conditions and standard oflife.

Local context:
Waste Pickers: We Contribute to the Economy Too
The economic crisis has led to a drop in prices for recovered materials due to the
decrease in sales and increase in inventory. Consequently the purchase of raw materials
from waste pickers has declined. Given their condition waste pickers are only left with the
choice of accepting the deflated prices offered for theirwork. This means that they are
subject to lower wages but longer working hours, less stability, security and becoming more
vulnerable within society.
Besides this exploitative situation there is also the relation between the informal and the
formal sector by individual transactions, sub-sectors or value chains, or simply by indefinite
employment for the informal sector workers. This relationshipto the formal sector is
inevitable for waste pickers to make their living, partly because it is the formal economy that
established the prices for the materials they manage to collect. But the real issue that
differences these two sectors is the appropriate regulations, and legal and social protection
given to the workers.
Some of the concerns of the informal sector are poor health andstandards, lack of
education and professional skills, no governmental support or access to financing as well

as being a marginalized group of society usually made up of immigrants or minority
communities.
The informal sector is defined as waste collectors, rag pickers who collect waste from
streets, scavengers who pick waste from dumpsites and informal middlemen for example:
recycling dealers...