Waste pickers are fighting for recognition in the global plastics treaty | Grist

Source: Waste pickers are fighting for recognition in the global plastics treaty | Grist

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In 2021, single-use plastic waste grew to more than 130 million tons worldwide, while governments around the globe ramped up efforts to address plastic pollution. But as cities, countries, and companies face increasing pressure to reduce their waste, they risk sidelining workers like Hlatshwayo. When recycling collection services are formalized, or outsourced to private companies, they often monopolize waste streams that more than 20 million waste pickers around the world rely on for income.

Reforms like these may not even decrease the volume of plastic in landfills or the environment, in part because they disrupt an informal sector that currently captures over 60 percent of all plastic recycled. In South Africa, this rate reaches up to 90 percent of all post-consumer packaging, and only 10 percent of urban households sort their own waste. By scouring alleyways on foot and sorting dumpsters by hand, waste pickers often go where few formal systems can follow. They can achieve collection rates that, though largely invisible, are far higher than systems that rely on residents or optimize for speed. 

A 2020 pilot program in Johannesburg measured the volume of recyclable materials collected by waste pickers in the suburbs of Brixton and Auckland Park, finding recycling rates so high that, if extrapolated across the city, it would take all 8,000 waste pickers just 28 days to gather as much recycled material as the city and its contractors collected in one year. 

…While Hlatshwayo’s organizing efforts advance at the local level, a similar fight is taking place on the world stage. This week, delegates from over 175 countries arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, to negotiate the terms of a global treaty intended to end plastic pollution. Waste pickers from nine countries — South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Italy, and the United States — will make their case through a series of events and interventions in treaty discussions. 

Toward the end of the document, waste pickers appeared in three separate clauses. The language called for improved working conditions, integration into a “safe” plastics value chain, and the use of revenue from collection systems run by plastic producers for waste picker support or retraining.

The inclusion of “just transition” language in the zero draft was a major win for the waste pickers’ movement, one that reflected the strength of their advocacy and the number of member states willing to bring their issues to the floor, including Brazil, Uruguay, and the Philippines.