Integrating waste pickers in solid waste management: promising models and common lessons

The focus of this article is on the integration of people who collect and sort solid waste in order to reclaim and sell recyclable materials into formal solid waste management systems. It presents a typology of approaches to integrating waste pickers, with illustrative examples drawn from across the world and grounded in the experience and research of the global network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). It opens with evidence on the magnitude, heterogeneity, characteristics, and contributions of waste pickers and goes on to discuss their involvement in formal and informal, public and private solutions to solid waste management and recycling. The article concludes with common demands by waste pickers and factors which enable inclusive reforms to solid waste management: pointing the way forward for a better deal for waste pickers.