Bharati Chaturvedi is the founder of Chintan, an Indian-based organization that cuts waste and consumption. While speaking at a plenary discussion at Circularity 20 last week, she raised a good point: If waste collectors play such a pivotal role in the plastic supply chain, why aren’t they valued adequately for their contribution? After all, it’s the collectors that are doing the work to ensure that plastic winds up being recycled rather than making its way into waste streams.
“What we’re seeing is these people are stigmatized, but they really know their waste. They know what will sell. They pick it up. They sell it. They send their children to school,” said Chaturvedi. “We would have so much more plastic in our rivers and in our oceans if we didn’t have the informal sector – globally – not just for India.”
Seeing that the working conditions for waste collectors are dire in South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia, she tried to do things differently with Chintan. The company uses waste collection as a tool to fight poverty, child labor, gender-based violence and exclusion, and climate change while creating green jobs.
“Nobody recognizes them as the climate warriors and environmentalists that they truly are. And I’m really talking about 1.5 million to 2 million people on this planet.”
So, how does their work begin to be valued? That’s part of the work being done by Mr. Green Africa, an organization that aims to alleviate the marginalization and large-scale disadvantage of informal waste pickers and their communities. By copying the fair trade approaches seen in the tea and coffee industries, which includes smallholder farmers in the value chain, waste collection companies can be ensured of better working conditions, fair prices, and transparency.
“If we create solutions to tackle the waste or the plastic pollution problem, it should include this informal market and making them an essential part of the solution,” said Keiran Smith, founder of Mr. Green Africa.
Other than making waste collectors a more formal part of the company, another element would be to help waste collectors become better compensated for their work – bridging the gap between collectors and corporations that want to use post-consumer resin (PCR), a solution for reusing single-use materials that otherwise might end up in the landfill, for their products.
This is just one example, but there are plenty of ways in which better conditions can be guaranteed for waste collectors. At a time where fair trade practices are becoming more common in some industries, it is about time we ensure the same is true for the waste collectors.
Want to read more about Chintan’s work? Take a look at this piece from our friends over at GreenBiz.
