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 has spread 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 garbage collection 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 garbage collection. 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 through unions, 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 for waste 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 of life.

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 their work. 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 relationship to 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 and standards, 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 or wholesalers that make up 1% of the urban population, close to 15 million people around the world mostly in Latin America and Asia. This group of people is seen as a problem to landfill sites, and cities in general but there is an estimate from the World Bank that says they collect as much as 20% of Chinas waste. There are around15 million people who have an impact of hundreds of millions of dollars in the economy, they sell the recycled materials and supply the municipality with an additional revenue stream; reduce city expenditure on garbage collection; offer cheap, even free thorough collection sorting recyclables that support the materials market and reduce the waste that ends up in overflowing landfills. So why is their work so incredibly undervalued? I believe this is because the economic value of waste is not completely understood and a large number of people dont see the potential in this sector. Garbage collection is essential for the public health and livability of urban centers around the world and most inhabited places. Waste management is one of the fundamental topics on the global agenda, thus is mostly seen as environmental issue. In developed countries and economies the principles of reduction of waste and the enhancement of reuse and recycling are being targeted through government regulation, stakeholder co-operation and citizens initiatives. However, in developing countries waste management solutions are still very much linked to technological developments and privatization of the industry. The difference between the wealthy nations and developing places like Asia is that in the first they are mostly concerned about waste due to ecological reasons such as pollution or lack of landfill space; in the latter waste is directly linked to the lives of waste pickers and disadvantaged people who turn to this work as a means to survive. But there are many factors that lead the approaches taken by developed nations to fail in underdeveloped countries because they are extremely different, for example, in terms of income, standard of living, consumer behavior and capital available. So the approaches taken in places such as Asia, which are mostly low-income communities should be focused past ecological issues and be more directed towards social action for the poor. According to Christine Furedy in the article Working with the Waste Pickers: Their broader goals link resource recognition to social betterment and changes in attitude at the local level. These initiatives include assisting poor people whose livelihoods depend on wastes to do safer, more acceptable work; promoting the separation of wastes to facilitate more thorough or more efficient recycling (including decentralized composting), and developing community / private-sector / municipal partnerships. In addition to this the solutions need to be affordable, they must create jobs in which community participation is encouraged and most of all that recognize the contribution that the workers in the informal sector specifically waste pickers can make. When waste pickers are supported it can lead to great achievements at local and global levels, but I believe it needs to start within local communities. Looking closer at Hong Kong

theres a lack of official or non-official information about this group of people. There are studies about landfills that in their observations have no records of seeing waste pickers within the landfills, but when transiting the city it is obvious that there is a large group of mostly elderly people who make their living by picking up recyclables objects from trashcans spread throughout the city and who stand hours at the exits of MTR stations collecting the newspapers from people. Men and women walk through the streets carrying pushcarts, trolleys or tricycles filled with large piles of plastic bottles or carton. However, aside from the fact that they are seen on daily basis walking the streets, they are still invisible and marginalized. In the first half of 2010 the poverty rate in Hong Kong reached a record high of about 18 percent of the whole population and 40 percept of the elderly feel below the poverty line, according to the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. If informal garbage collection was regarded as a tool for sustainable development and found better support in the government and city inhabitants in general, it could reduce this poverty rate by creating more employment and better conditions for people especially the elderly who are the most vulnerable group of society. It could also play its part in the economy by lowering costs for raw materials, conserving resources and finally reducing pollution. The city can offer cooperative programs, or even micro-financing to incorporate waste pickers in the waste management programs offered by Hong Kong and give them a dignified way of making their living, instead of regarding them as a nuisance. This leads us into the global context of informal garbage collection and the initiatives that are being taken around the world and how the globalization aspect of media is being used as a way to create networks and take the unheard voices of waste pickers globally.

Global Context Waste pickers: A Rising Network. As it was mentioned in the previous section, waste pickers play an important role in helping maintain cities clean as well as create benefits for the economy and the environment yet they are still treated as nuisances and in some parts of the world harassed and persecuted by authorities. It is an unfortunate situation, but one that is slowly changing. Garbage collectors working in the informal sector are starting to organize themselves in order to create better conditions for their work and life, be recognized for the important job they do and how they contribute to the environment and economy, and to raise their standard of life so they can be valued and not vulnerable. Here I would like to use the example of the First World Conference of Waste Pickers and the Third Latin American Conference of Waste Pickers held in March 2008 in Bogot Colombia. This was a groundbreaking event where waste pickers and their allies shared experiences, identified key challenges and discussed ways of strengthening regional and global networks. Refusing to be Cast Aside, WIEGO Publication. Globalization is a process that has enabled marginalized group such as waste pickers to have the opportunity to come together and strive to be heard around the world. Current globalized networks focus on trade, finance and investment but initiatives such as this conference and others mentioned later on are a clear example of how communication has the power to implement global strategies focused on the improvement of social issues and living standards. In the case of waste pickers global strategies can be used to dignify

their work, improve their lives and income as well as stimulate transnational finance and especially trade and imports of materials. Following are a number of examples that effectively use transnational networks to fight marginalization. As it was mentioned before, The First world Conference is one of them. Here waste pickers from more than thirty countries around the world came together. The issues and challenges they face were discussed keeping in mind the differences and uniqueness of their cities. The objective here was not to generalize the issue but learn from sharing and exchanging each others experiences what are the common areas of the problem and how they can be targeted. This type of collaborative action and exchange of information is what empowers people to find solutions and take action in generating change. Another initiative directly related to Mediascapes is Waste Pickers and Recyclers Project Social Documentary Competition. There are many words to describe garbage collectors of the informal sector. In Hong Kong they are called Waste Pickers, in Bogota they are called Recyclers. This project is a video competition aiming to collect transnational perspectives of a day in the life of waste pickers in Hong Kong and recyclers in Bogota. Their objective is to create a social documentary that plays two roles: a medium of artistic expression, as well as a tool to inject a modicum of reality into the daily routine of a global audience. There are other competitions being done in Mexico, USA and Serbia. This project is done to collect first-hand information oh the phenomenon of waste collection and its players. The WPRP was inspired by another project called the Waste Picker Shelter, which will be further discussed in the design section of the document, but it is also another example about how dissemination of ideas and knowledge can lead to new creations that can have a great impact on peoples lives around the world. I believe this is an example of what Arjun Appadurai called the transnations of diasporic communities, which are becoming very important in increasing global links; only that I would call it the transnations of marginalized communities where there are links being created between the producers and the audience, in this case with the waste pickers. Here new connections and conversation are generated increasing the number of players within a network and helping it expand into other realms that might not be considered to be directly related, but that can have an impact too. Global initiatives like WPRP, can also fall into cosmopolitan democracies Murdock (1998). Again applied to waste pickers, is the space for them to connect with each other to express their concern about their current life conditions and unite efforts to target specific issues of interest. Some of these issues deal with health problems and disease, hostile physical and social environments. Migration is another issue given the fact that immigrants make up a large part of the garbage collectors population along with children, women and elderly people. However, coming together and creating networks is an effective way of organizing themselves and finding solutions to local problems at a global level. Latin American garbage collectors can be taken as an example of this network organized to find ways to come out of poverty. They are changing informal waste management from an exploitative work scheme to a way to achieve sustainable development by forming cooperatives, micro-enterprises, and public-private partnerships, negotiating with recycling plants, city governments and middlemen. The formalization of this sector can place this

group of people directly into local and global supply chains, which also results in major benefits for the environment and ecological issues. Waste pickers around Latin American have placed themselves into an organization Red Latinoamericana de Recicladores (Latin American Network of Recyclers), which represents and integrates the working efforts that bring together the waste pickers of the region. Its mission is to improve the working conditions and to favor the communication channels between countries to exchange experiences, design actions and put them into practice together. I believe this is an inspiring example of how a group of marginalized people can come together in order to join efforts and strive for a better life. The effectiveness and results this collaborative approach can have is directly link to the power generated by the network and its reach across the globe.

Design Context Waste Pickers: A World of Opportunities Arguably, design activism is a response to particular contemporary conditions of geopolitical change, social conditions, economic practices and environmental challenges. One of the most well known examples of how design can contribute to global issues is the design firm IDEO, which established their design ethos as Design Thinking parting from a human-centered approach. Their Social Innovation strategy is directed towards poverty, nutrition, health, water and sanitation, economic empowerments, access to financial services and gender equity; issues, which are closely linked to the environmental and social issue of waste collection. Approaches like their creation of new offerings by identifying new ways to serve and support people by studying their true needs and behaviors, becoming more human-centered, and spreading and building success at both macro and micro levels by identifying solutions and adapting them to meet specific needs of people are effective design initiatives that can be implemented to help waste pickers deal with their problems. This is an outstanding example of how design can be used as a driver of development and change in our globalized world. Like IDEO the rise of social innovation and design activism is experiencing a great increase and gaining power as a tool for problem solving of complex social issues. Another example is the nonprofit media organization World Changing, dedicated to solution-based journalism about the planetary future. This organization revolves around a network of journalists, designers and thinkers working together to create solutions for global issues. One specific project they launched was The Community Price; a competition to design a simple shelter for a community that could use it to improve their living standard. The finalist for the competition was The Waste Pickers Shelter, created by Alexander Nio Ruiz from Remote Studio, stating that 18,000 families of recyclers collect almost one tenth of the garbage in Bogota on a daily basis. Most of these families build their shelters using the garbage they collect. The Waste Pickers Shelter is made of four barrel-shaped boxes in corrugated metal that act as a waste container, which is easy to pull and move. At night it provides shelter for the recyclers to sleep in and be guarded from the rain and maybe even kept warm by the trash they manage to recycle during the day.

Some might consider these quick-fixes to the problem, but if design continues to be part of the solution of this issue, projects like this one could potentially develop into long term solutions not only for waste pickers but also unprivileged people around the world. I believe there many possibilities for design to play an important role in this issue, and initiatives like the Waste Picker Conference is the starting point to identify some of the similar challenges they have. As it was mentioned before it has to be taken into consideration that even though they might have the same challenges the objective shouldnt be to try and solve them in the same manner, which is the conventional way or approach the wealthy nations take towards waste collection. For instance when developed countries transfer the technology and methods that work for garbage collection in their countries it might not always be successful; there are extremely different physical and socioeconomic conditions in developing countries where these technologies are trying to be applied that require different solutions. Martin Medina in his Essay Globalization, Development, and Municipal Solid Waste Management in Third World Cities, uses compactor trucks as an example of inappropriate technology for some countries. The trucks use a compactor mechanism to increase the density of waste and reduce the number of collection trips, this works well in industrialized countries with low density of waste, but the density of waste in developing country is much larger and cannot be compacted by these low-density trucks. Another important factor in this issue are the geographical conditions of developing countries. The unpaved roads, narrow streets and steep and hilly roads make it impossible for trucks to have access to these areas and when they do enter they end up breaking down. In this case the mechanisms waste pickers use to collect garbage such as donkey carts, horse carts, push carts, and tricycles are much more convenient and have better access to more inaccessible places for trucks. So instead of implementing technologies that are not successful for waste collection in developing countries, design can be used to examine other ways to solve these problems. Placing this example in the design local and global context, more efforts can be put into understanding the specific issues that arise from the exchange of information and experiences by the waste pickers globally and engage in collaborative action to find common solutions, which can then be try translated to their local context, designing suitable objects that fit their needs and adapt to their surroundings. In other words there can be local initiatives that can expand and create global networks, which can identify similar challenges, opportunities and solutions and engage in collaborative action that can then be implemented locally to overcome challenges faced within unique environments.

References

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