Sep
11
Benefits of informal waste collection
Inclusive Cities is an organization that aims to improve the livelihoods of the urban working poor, most of whom are employed in the informal economy, many as waste pickers, street vendors, and home-based workers. Inclusive Cities has several reports, one being Waste Pickers (PDF).
“Waste pickers form a small, but vital, part of the informal economy. In nearly every city of the developing world, thousands of men, women, and children make a living collecting, sorting, recycling, and selling the valuable materials thrown away by others. They collect household waste from the curb side, commercial and industrial waste from dumpsters, and litter from the streets, canals and other urban waterways. Others live and work in municipal dumps – as many as 20,000 people in Calcutta, 12,000 in Manila, and 15,000 in Mexico City.” The report lists benefits of informal waste collection as:- Contribution to public health and sanitation. In the fast-growing cities of the developing world, informal waste collection is the only way that waste gets removed from the many neighborhoods not served by municipal authorities. Third World municipalities only collect between 50 and 80 percent of the refuse generated in their cities.
- Employment and a source of income for poor people. The World Bank estimates that one percent of the urban population in developing countries earns a living through waste collection and/or recycling, in the poorest countries, up to two percent do so. A significant number are women, and, in some cases, children.
- Provision of inexpensive recycled materials to industry. This reduces the need for expensive imports. The Mexican paper industry, for example, depends on wastepaper to meet about 74 percent of its fiber needs, and buys cardboard collected by Mexico’s cartoneros at less than one-seventh the price it would pay for market pulp from the U.S.
- Reduction in municipal expenses. Waste collectors reduce the amount of waste that needs to be collected, transported and disposed of with public funds—in Indonesia, for example, by one-third. And in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kanpur, Karachi, and Manila, informal waste collectors save each city at least US$23 million a year in costs for waste management and raw material imports.
- Contribution to environmental sustainability. In many cities, informal recycling is the only kind of recycling that occurs at all. It decreases the amount of virgin materials used by industry, thereby conserving natural resources and energy while reducing air and water pollution. It also reduces the amount of land that needs to be devoted to dumps and landfills.
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