The waste sector, especially in the Global South countries, is heavily reliant on informal waste workers. Though the size of this group is difficult to ascertain, a majority of the population engaged in the informal waste business are waste pickers.
These individuals collect waste from dumpsites, landfills, urban containers, or various dumping points across cities. Their labour is integral to extracting value from waste and, in effect, compensates for the shortcomings of municipal waste collection services. Most municipalities, particularly in terms of doorstep collection, have struggled to deliver this service to the required standard.
Cities with inefficient doorstep collection systems and poor source segregation levels often rely heavily on material recovery facilities to sort waste as an alternative. However, this approach does not always ensure that waste is properly managed or prevented from being illegally dumped.
A majority of the cost for cities providing waste management services are spent on door-to-door collection of waste and transporting the collected waste to processing facilities. The entire system imposes a significant financial burden on municipalities, as a large portion of their budgets is disproportionately allocated to urban sanitation.
In contrast, informal waste pickers contribute significant value to cities by reducing waste management costs through their efforts, effectively subsidising municipal expenses.
The concept of integration involves including these existing workers, or informal waste pickers, into the system without altering, marginalising, or formalising them. It is important to incorporate the waste pickers while maintaining their current work patterns. This ensures they continue to play a crucial role in the waste value chain without disrupting the current workforce by creating entirely new jobs. It also enables them to retain autonomy over the waste, while their core skills and work of sorting and selling recyclables remain intact.
Formalisation, on the other hand, is often perceived — although not limited to — as converting the work into a traditional time-bound 9-to-5 job, such as a factory shift or a similarly structured setup. It may involve assigning tasks like driving collection vehicles or providing collection services, often without granting access to the waste itself.
Cities often restrict access to waste, preferring a minimum wage model while retaining the rights to recyclables for themselves or private concessionaires in an attempt to generate revenue. While this approach may limit earnings from waste, a fixed salary with social benefits still offers a more secure livelihood at scale compared to the risk of complete job loss.
It involves transforming informal waste pickers into structured or semi-structured workers under regulations, typically as contracted employees with a defined employer-employee relationship. While this provides legal recognition, fixed salaries and social benefits, it often comes with reduced flexibility and limited access to waste, especially in processing units.
The significance of promoting integration lies in understanding the unique circumstances and profiles of informal waste pickers across the country. For instance, in Pune, many are Dalit women who were displaced from their native regions due to the droughts of the 1970s, arriving with no land or access to livelihood. In cities like Bengaluru, Delhi or Gurugram, waste pickers often migrate from states such as West Bengal, Assam or Bihar, driven by poverty and a lack of livelihood opportunities.
Multiple layers of marginalisation such as illiteracy, poverty, gender and caste — have severely limited their chances of entering other forms of employment, including domestic work or migrant labour. Waste picking has remained one of the few occupations requiring no capital or formal qualifications, making it accessible to those with no other options.
The common thread among waste pickers is their extreme marginalisation and limited access to other forms of employment, leaving this as one of the only viable means of earning an income and breaking the barrier of multidimensional poverty.
The integration, therefore, is to take a compassionate view of the labour, while transitioning from the completely informal towards the formal, identify who these people are, enumerating them, issuing identity cards and, thus, offering them agency and choice to become a part of whatever new system the city has to offer.
It could follow a SWaCH-like model, empowering informal waste collectors as service providers, or a Bengaluru-like model, where the informal scrap shop network operates as entrepreneurial hubs. Alternatively, it could also adopt an Ambikapur-like model, which relies on decentralised, labour-intensive operations managed by self-help groups, or a mechanised system, as seen in some cities, to enhance operational efficiency.
The goal is to leverage the already existing skilled workforce of the informal sector in such a manner, so that these marginalised individuals get a space within the ecosystem without being displaced by a new system altogether where a similar skill set and labour are required.
Rather than emphasising on differences between formalisation and integration, policymakers should focus on integration as the pathway. This could lead to formalisation, semi-formalisation, or continued integration, each being a possible outcome.
Pune’s success lies in its long history of activism, political will, administrative support and active citizen participation.
Multiple models of integration exist in different cities of India, but all the informal waste workers, especially the waste pickers, unanimously agree on the following essential measures for effective integration:
Inclusive identification policies: While challenging, proper identification must be prioritised, with waste pickers actively involved in policy formulation.
Recognition and priority: Accurate enumeration and identity cards are crucial, ensuring waste pickers are given first priority in integration efforts.
Social security and welfare: Compensation for their contributions should include gratuity, medical and accident insurance, pensions, life insurance, and educational support for their children.
Job security and working conditions: Stable employment and improved working conditions are non-negotiable.
Guaranteed access to waste: Ensuring access to waste is fundamental to their livelihoods and must be upheld.
The foundational steps of integration — identifying and enumerating waste pickers, registering them with valid job identity cards, and linking them to social security schemes like medical benefits and educational support for their children — can be replicated in any city in India. These steps provide a strong framework for integration.
The successful integration of informal waste workers necessitates a holistic approach that considers legal, social and economic factors. The effectiveness of legal mandates depends on the commitment of authorities and stakeholders to implement, enforce and continuously monitor the integration process.