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Leila Iskandar: Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

Mantoe Phakathi

COPENHAGEN (IPS/TerraViva) Members of the Global Network of Waste Pickers say recognising the work they do recycling rubbish can make a valuable contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“Governments would rather contract big companies to either incinerate or bury the waste,” said Leila Iskandar from the African Waste Pickers Network. “Incinerating or burying waste results in global warming which has caused climate change.”

Waste pickers have travelled from all over the world to Copenhagen to demand that the recycling of waste material be given greater prominence in the negotiations over climate change.

“When producing new material, a lot of energy is required to drive whatever machinery is used. This results in a lot of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Iskandar.

She added that the depletion of natural resources such as tin and aluminum is also reduced through recycling, because there would be less demand for raw material.

Jaiprakash Choudhary from Delhi in India says he was out of a job after the municipal government contracted a company to burn household waste.

“I never used to make much to take care of my family from this business, but I was happy that I was taking care of the environment,” said the father of two who earned between 90 and 120 dollars a month from this trade.

Choudhary is critical of programmes like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) programme for refusing to fund recycling by waste pickers, while supporting projects that generate electricity from rubbish. He suggests smaller scale operations like his own should also be supported.

“A person like me needs money to buy simple machinery (called granulators) for converting plastic into flakes before selling them. This machinery uses less energy and could help give waste pickers reasonable income,” said Choudhary.

“We hope that after this meeting, governments will recognise the value of waste pickers and allow them to participate in municipal management,” said Iskandar.

For now, she said, many governments – especially in Africa – fail to see the value in the recycling of waste materials which include paper, plastic, tin, aluminum and wood, preferring instead to destroy it.

According to Iskandar, bringing in multinational companies with incinerators to get rid of the waste not only depletes the environment, “it also takes away a source of livelihood for these poor people.”

Iskandar said governments refuse to support waste pickers, or simply recognise their work formally, so that they can become part of municipal waste collection, paid to collect and sort refuse from householders and businesspeople. As it stands, waste pickers feel they are providing a service, but householders and businesspeople feel they are doing these waste collectors a favour by allowing them to cart away their rubbish.

“(Waste pickers) only make money by selling to those traders who sell to the factories that recycle these materials,” said Iskandar. “This is hardly enough to sustain them.”

It looks like the waste pickers have more convincing to do so that people realise that there is more to this rubbish than what meets the eye.
(END/2009)