Socio-Economic Contributions of Informal Waste Pickers to Urban Waste Management

A major but marginalized source of labor in urban waste management systems across the world is informal waste pickers. This paper will discuss the socio-economic complexity of the informal waste pickers contribution to sustainable urban development, environmental conservation, and frameworks of the circular economy. This paper, through the analysis of the modern research and empirical evidence, shows that waste pickers prevent large amounts of recyclable materials in landfills, smaller amounts of greenhouse gases, offer affordable waste management systems, and sustain livelihoods of millions of urban poor. Waste pickers have had significant contributions, but still experience systemic issues such as social stigmatization, economic exploitation and policy marginalization. This article proposes that it is possible to integrate and formalize the informal waste pickers into the municipal waste management systems without depriving them of their autonomy and economic opportunities.