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| Informal waste workers plying the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam |
I wrote this in my previous job as Waste Management Project Officer. I'm posting it now.
In developing countries where there is often a lack of
services offered by traditional structures, there is often a more important
role given to the informal sector. The informal sector is mostly composed of
self-employed people who have organized their own business without necessarily
having official status (through acquiring a permit, having a proper storefront,
etc). One important service many municipalities are falling short on in rapidly
developing cities is that of waste management. City governments are having a
difficult time cleaning up after more a more affluent lifestyle that leaves
huge amounts of waste and packaging in its wake.
Making up this shortage, there are throngs of informal waste
workers plying the streets buying re-marketable waste from houses and picking
through garbage. They are then able to sell those recyclables to intermediaries
– junk shops – and make a small profit in the meantime. It should be clear that
the reason for the waste workers to enter the sector is neither to clean up the
streets nor to help reduce the amount of resources being sent to landfill. They
enter this sector because they may lack the skills or education necessary to be
employed in a formal sector, or lack the necessary amount of capital to open a
stall or store. The most beneficial aspect of the waste trade is that it only
requires some mobility… and well, perhaps a strong voice in order to carry a
melodic call for recyclables through the streets. You can hear them everyday
calling out to houses… “Booooooooooottles! Plaaaaaaaaaaastic! I will buy your
bottles!”
The work is difficult, hauling large bags of paper,
cardboard, plastic or glass through the streets or else transporting it with a
flimsy bicycle. Despite the laborious nature of the work, there are fringe benefits. Workers are able to
work on a flexible schedule, can take extended leaves if they want and are able
to make some extra money by working more as they wish. These benefits are
particularly important for women. Mothers are able to take on traditional roles
in the household while they can also have some extra work when time allows,
helping low-income families bridge financial gaps.
Cities like San Fernando La Union, where I was working in
the Philippines, are expanding their waste pick-up and recycling services
trying to make up for years of not being able to address the increasingly
present waste problem. However in expanding this service informal waste workers
are being squeezed out of their income. As incomes are increasing in many
brackets, the people at the bottom are often stuck in the same situation. More
so, many city dwellers look at informal waste workers as undesirable and
uncivilized symbols of 3rd world poverty (I use the term 3rd world purposefully).
Policies in developing cities often address the lack of
municipal waste management services while ignoring the effects on the informal
sector. The sector is mostly composed of low-income individuals either trying
to make supplementary income for their family or relying entirely on the income
of buying and selling waste. Most urban dwellers support these policies because
they not only get rid of waste in the street, but have political machinery and
policies that prohibit any waste pick up other than municipal, effectively
shutting out the informal sector.
It is therefore incredibly
important that this group of workers, the informal workers, be able to benefit
from the increased development in creating structures that do not limit their
ability to collect waste. As well, it is important that policies be put in
place that encourage the hiring of women for private companies when under
contract by the city. Programs that help
train and organise women working in the informal waste sector could help them
be included in the switch to a more formal structure.
It is incredibly fundamental that
with this modernization, government policy makers ensure that those at the
bottom of the waste management stream be able to also profit from development.
Because the institutionalization and professionalization of the waste
management sector often excludes women and the poor from participating, efforts
must be made to ensure that programs are in place that allow them to make the
step up to the formal sector. The accessible work that the informal sector
provides has been instrumental in helping people in poverty to make ends meet;
this cannot be forgotten by policymakers.
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