Talk:Waste picker

Untitled
I have moved some material here from the scavenger page, which was really more about the zoological sense of the word. I apologize that some of it may not flow very well at this point. I will try to reword awkward parts soon, if no one else gets to it first. Cheers, Justinleif 18:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Dumpster diving vs Waste picker
Dumpster diving and Waste picker seem to be very similar concepts. Can someone explain their differences within the articles? -- 202.40.137.199 (talk) 07:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Technically, dumpster diving is a form of waste picking which occurs in dumpsters. But in its common usage, "dumpster diver" usually refers to anti-consumerist activists in the developed world who salvage recyclables from the waste stream for personal consumption or to donate (see "freegan"), while "waste picker" refers to poor people in the developed or developing world who subsist by salvaging recyclables to sell or for personal consumption. Manuelrberkeley (talk) 15:32, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

suggestions for improvement
1.	Citation needed on “Despite spending 30 – 50% of their operational budgets on waste management, Third World cities collect only between 50 and 80% of the refuse generated.”

2.	The list of cities listed under “in different countries/cities” is haphazard and arbitrary.

3.	Some of the content under “etymology” should be moved to “terminology”.

4.	The final paragraph under “etymology” starting with “However, it need not have this negative connotation” seems tacked on, contradicts the prior paragraph, and is an unsubstantiated personal opinion. Many poor people in the developing world who subsist by salvaging recyclables from the waste stream find the term “scavenger” demeaning, as they don’t like to be compared to animals. For a further discussion of this, see “the politics of naming” (pp. 2-3) section in Melanie Samson’s “Refusing to be Cast Aside” 

5.	The cooperative movement section should be fleshed out. This is one of the most important global social movements among workers in the informal economy today. See http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-pickers.

6.	In addition to “occupational health” there should be mention of other challenges which confront by waste pickers, such as harassment by authorities, public stigma, exploitation by middlemen, and privatization of the waste management industry. Manuelrberkeley (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Additional Relevant Research We May Wish to Cite
Castillo, H. 1990. La Sociedad de la Basura: Caciquismo Urbano en la Ciudad de México. Second Edition. Mexico City: UNAM.

Medina, Martin. 2007. “The World’s Scavengers: Salvaging for Sustainable Consumption and Production.” Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.

Rodríguez-Garavito, César. 2006. “Solidarity Economy and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in Ties of Globalization: A Studey of Cooperatives of Informal Garbage Pickers in Colombia.” In Boaventura de Sousa Santos (ed.) Another Production is Possible: Beyond the Capitalist Canon. New York, NY: Verso.

Samson, Meanie (ed.). 2009. “Refusing to be Cast Aside: Waste Pickers Organizing Around the World.” Cambridge, MA: WEIGO.

WEIGO. March 2008. “Report of Conference Proceedings: Waste Pickers without Frontiers” Bogota, Colombia: First World Conference and Third Latin-American Conference of Waste-Pickers. Manuelrberkeley (talk) 03:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Plans to Improve this Page
Over the next month, I plan to make several edits to this page. Here is some of what I have in mind:

1.	Create a section on waste pickers’ relation to cities. For generations, waste pickers have made key ecological and economic contributions to cities, but in many places their livelihoods are threatened by the privatization of waste management systems (i.e., municipalities are granting rights to work that used to do be done by waste pickers to private companies). Some cities are making efforts to include waste pickers in the formalization process and providing public resources for waste pickers’ housing, health and work needs.

2.	Discuss the waste picking supply chain. In the developing world, the chain can generally be thought of as a pyramid, with a small number of recycling corporations at the top, a large network of intermediaries (contractor cartels, small companies, yard owners) in the middle, and a still much larger number of waste pickers at the bottom (The World Bank estimates that 1-2% of the urban population in the developing world subsists by waste picking.)

3.	Create a section distinguishing between waste pickers in the developed and developing worlds. Most cities in the developing world don’t have formal systems for recycling solid waste, so waste pickers make a pivotal contribution to the waste management system. There are fewer waste pickers in the developed world, and they are somewhat less central to waste management systems.

4.	Flesh out the cooperative movement section. This is one of the most important global social movements among workers in the informal economy today. In 2008, delegates from cooperatives in thirty countries met at the first “Global Waste Pickers Conference” in Bogota, Colombia. See http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/waste-pickers.

5.	Add more demographic information about waste pickers, including information on gender, race, and age.

6.	Make distinctions between approaches to waste picking. Known as “the industry that is always hiring”, waste picking employs a wide cross section of the poor from homeless drug addicts, to the working poor who supplement incomes in low-paying jobs by waste picking, to full-time waste pickers who live in formal housing and support their families exclusively through their trade.

7.	Reorganize the places listed under “in different countries/cities”—the list is currently is haphazard and arbitrary. If it’s not clear what makes the location noteworthy (e.g., size or uniqueness of waste picking activity), then it doesn’t belong on the list.

8.	Create a section on occupational challenges. “Occupational health” could be moved to this section. Additionally, we also should include harassment by authorities, stigma, child labor, and exploitation by middlemen. --Mrosaldo (talk) 19:38, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments to current page
Introduction

You define what a waste picker is in the introduction, yet later on you add people who pick cannabis and people who are employed. Should they be in the definition? From my limited perspective they seem to be somewhat outside the topic for the page.

Questions: Are waste pickers a phenomenon that is only prevalent in Third World cities? Image of scavenger in Hong Kong seems to indicate otherwise. Perhaps prevalence of economic disparity correlates with waste picking - that is to say, where there are poor people and waste, there will be picking.

Third world: ambiguous, used to be a term to describe non-aligned countries during the cold war. Perhaps "developing country" might be more appropriate?

Rapid urbanization brought on by population growth and immigration? The part on urbanization is unclear to me - how does urbanization come along? How does it connect to scavenging?

Description of slum settlements is good.

Second paragraph

Sounds like you are comparing cities in the developing nations to the developed countries, rather than cities. Is waste picking an urban phenomenon?

Within a nation, is waste picking a solitary local phenomenon or is it epidemic?

Third paragraph

"The physical characteristics of..." is good, but how does the waste management or lack thereof in developing nations compare to developed nations? There is only data on developing nations.

Work method

What are they looking for? How does their lack of equipment lead to more pollution? I seem to recall a documentary from China where villagers burned old computer equipment to retrieve melted heavy metals- would this be an example? Do people who gather empty cans/bottles/paper for re-sale count as waste pickers?

How does the section on cooperatives fit with waste pickers working mostly alone? When employed, how much do waste pickers differ from workers in recycling companies? Lacking environmental suits- would this fit better under health hazards?

Terminology

Looks good to me

In different countries/cities

(Would this section fit better at the end?) Cairo: Why are cannabis pickers included as waste pickers? Victoria: Is social exclusion specific to Victoria? If not, perhaps this could have its own section “Social Exclusion”?

Link to:

Urbanization, developing country, slums, Cairo, Egypt, Paris, France, gleaning, Martin Hirsh, Cooperatives, Aboriginals Jacobseilo (talk) 06:00, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Substantive Review
Dear Manuel,

This article is still a work in progress, but I'm confident that it's headed in the right direction. I think there are three main things you can do to move the article forward:


 * 1. ORGANIZATION: You might want to re-consider the article's organization. I think a nice way to organize the article would be to move from the general to the specific.  That is, start with topics that apply to most waste pickers (terminology, work method, occupational health issues), and then move on to more specific topics and case studies (developing vs. developed world, cooperatives, NGO stuff, etc.).


 * 2. PREEXISTING CONTENT: You need to re-work the preexisting content. In some cases, you might just want to delete entire subsections (Cairo, Paris, Victoria, PSWM).  The list of “problematic sources,” as well as the annotated Word document I'm going to send you, will help you get started with this.


 * 3. MORE IS MORE: I think the article would be stronger if it included more detailed information. In my proposed outline, I point out some areas in need of elaboration.  In my list of “additional sources,” I point to some sources about waste pickers in the US, India, and South Africa that might be interesting.

Organization
I might re-organize the article in the following way:


 * 1. terminology
 * 2. work method: elaborate and clarify. For instance, what does it mean when you say that people sometimes use the recyclables instead of selling them?
 * 3. occupational health issues: get rid of the plagiarism, elaborate, and look for more studies
 * 4. waste pickers in the developing world
 * 5. waste pickers in the developed world??--This seems like a natural counterpart for section #4.--You could discuss homeless people who collect recyclables in the US, for instance. See link to Teresa Gowan article in “additional sources.”
 * 6. cooperatives
 * A. introduction: your first two paragraphs on cooperatives, but before you explain the three benefits of cooperatives, define "waste pickers' cooperative."
 * B. Examples of waste pickers cooperatives: here, you could include a revised/elaborated version of the existing description of waste pickers' cooperatives in Buenos Aires. Based on your own research, you could also add descriptions of waste pickers' cooperatives in Brazil and Colombia.  In each of these examples, you would describe the history, size, and structure of each cooperative, plus the specific political struggles each cooperative has engaged in.
 * 7. Non-cooperative NGOs:
 * A. Here you might include a revised version of the section on “participatory sustainable waste management”. I still don't know what this is, but if it's distinct from the cooperative movement, and if you think it's important enough to include in the article, then maybe it can go here.
 * B. You might also include something about NGOs' involvement with Indian waste pickers.
 * 8. Avenues for future research: I don't know if this is a standard thing to include in a wiki article, but I like the idea of it because it calls the reader's attention to the gaps in our knowledge.

Preexisting Content and Sources
I found many of the sources cited in this article to be problematic. Many of them are dead links to obscure newspaper articles, but a few are legit-seeming publications that I can't seem to find online. Below, you will find a list of the problematic sources. After this, I've included a list of additional sources for your consideration.

Problematic sources:

3. Bartone, C (January 1988). "The Value in Wastes". Decade Watch. --Can only find citation info, not the actual article, online. In any case, it looks like it came from an old UN publication (Decade Watch), not a World Bank publication like the wiki article claims.

4. Chaturvedi, Bharati (2010). "Mainstreaming Waste Pickers and the Informal Recycling Sector in the Municipal Solid Waste.". Handling and Management Rules 2000, A Discussion Paper. --can only find citation info, not the actual article, online.

8. Health risks for waste pickers ---dead link.

9. "Flintshire fundraiser's trip to help Nicaragua's rubbish dump scavengers". Evening Leader. North Wales Newspapers. February 9th YEAR. Retrieved February 9th 2009. ---can't find original article. Link goes to some obscure British newspaper.

12. Reynals, C. "De Cartoneros a Recuperadores Urbanos." lasociedadcivil.org. ---I don't know how great it is to have a spanish reference in an english wiki article.

14-15: both of the sources for the Cairo, Egypt section are pretty unreliable. One is a super short article from an obscure newspaper, and another is a rambling blog post. I would recommend deleting the section on cairo.

16: Sage, Adam (February 9th 2009). "Scavenger army goes to waste as credit crunch bites". Times News Service. London: Times Online. Retrieved February 9th 2009. ---dead link. I would consider deleting this section on Paris, France as well.

17. Gutberlet, J., Tremblay, C., Taylor, E., & Divakarannair, N. (2009). "Who are our informal recyclers? An inquiry to uncover crisis and potential in Victoria, Canada" (PDF). Local Environment 14 (8): 733–747. Retrieved 2009-10-23.[dead link] ---this article exists, but we can't access it, even with our super-special UCB library privileges. I would recommend deleting this section on Canadian waste pickers, not only because the citation is inaccessible, but also because the paragraph contradicts itself.

20. Gutberlet, Jutta. (5 June 1997). "Informal Recycling and Occupational Health in Santo André, Brazil" (PDF). International Journal of Environmental Health Research 18 (1): 1–15. Retrieved 2009-10-23. this source is fine, but the entire section on occupational health concerns is basically copied from the article's abstract. I know you didn't put this in the article, but it's plagiarism and it needs to be taken care of.

More is More (additional sources)
In addition to the bibliography from the paper you presented at the Labor Transformations workshop, here are some sources that might be useful.

Health (India): Hunt, Caroline. 1996. “Child waste pickers in India: the occupation and its health risks.” Environment and Urbanization. 8: 111-118. url: http://eau.sagepub.com/content/8/2/111.abstract

Waste Pickers in the Developed World: Gowan, Teresa (a uc berkeley alum!). 1997. American Untouchables: Homeless Scavengers in San Francisco's Underground Economy. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 17 Iss: 3/4, pp.159 – 190. http://trashethnography.wikispaces.com/file/view/american+untouchables+-+homeless+scavengers+in+san+francisco%27s+underground+economy.pdf/182673883/american%20untouchables%20-%20homeless%20scavengers%20in%20san%20francisco%27s%20underground%20economy.pdf

NGO's and Indian Waste Pickers: Huysman, Marijk. 1994. Waste picking as a survival strategy for women in Indian cities. Environment and Urbanization. 6: 155. url: http://eau.sagepub.com/content/6/2/155.full.pdf+html

Case study of waste pickers in Delhi (India): Sarkar, Papiya. 2003. “Solid Waste Management In Delhi – A Social Vulnerability Study” http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Sarkar_SWM%20in%20Delhi%20-%20A%20Social%20Vulnerability%20Study.pdf

Case study of waste pickers in South Africa: Theron, Jan. “options for organizing waste pickers in South Africa.” part of WIEGO's inclusive cities project. url: http://www.inclusivecities.org/toolbox/Organizing_Waste_Pickers_South_Africa_web.pdf

Additional Comments
Links: I don't know if it is required by wikipedia, but I think it's nice to be able to click on a reference and go to the article. When I could, I went through and added links to the relevant content. When you add more sources in the future, I recommend that you do this as well.

Named References: If you name your references, you don't have to re-enter the citation information each time you re-cite a source. Check out the list of “named references” in the edit page to see the resources that have already been named.

Terminology: For clarity's sake, you should probably only use the term “waste picker” in the sections following the “terminology” section.

Waste v. Wastes: Both “waste” and “wastes” are grammatically correct, but I seem to have a strong aesthetic preference for “waste.”

Images: Do you have any images from your work in Colombia this summer that you might like to add? Perhaps an image of a group of co-op workers?

Checklist
-checked references and listed the ones that seem problematic

-re-formatted some of the references and included links to content

-suggested additional areas to include in the article

-suggested additional resources

-suggested the addition of an image from Colombia

--Amcook (talk) 01:32, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Estre Ambiental
According to Michael Palin's Brazil documentary, Estre Ambiental is hiring waste pickers to help in sorting/recycling 20% of the waste from ie landfills. Appearantly this is necessairy since Brazil passed a new law requiring atleast 20% of the waste to be sorted.

Mention in article. 109.130.145.148 (talk) 09:57, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

"solid waste collection"
Why is this mentioned in the lede? what is the relevance or importance? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 18:21, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge
Oppose merging Ragpicker or Rag-and-bone man here on the grounds that these are specific historical terms with a context and permutations that will be lost if merged to "Waste picker".E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Closed, given the lack of support. Klbrain (talk) 14:50, 30 June 2019 (UTC)