Released on: 30/11/2024 – 09:49Changed: 30/11/2024 – 10:00

3 minutes

Between 20 and 34 million people are believed to work as waste pickers worldwide, playing a vital role in recovering recyclables.

“We are the biggest company in the world,” 54-year-old Maria Soledad Mella Vidal, a Chilean garbage collector, told the French news agency AFP.

“We don’t have money, infrastructure or machines… but we are extremely proud because our contribution to environment is real.”

Representatives of almost 200 nations are gathered South Korea to agree a landmark deal to curb plastic pollution littering the planet.

Only nine percent of plastic is currently recycled globally.

But estimates suggest that over half of what is recycled is recycled by waste pickers.

Johnson Doe joined the sector at 16 inches Ghanacapital Accra.

“There was no formal job around, so the only work to do was to be a garbage collector,” he told AFP.

Every day, the 39-year-old waits for garbage trucks to arrive at one of the city’s dumpsites so he can collect recyclables to sell to a middleman.

He earns three dollars a day on average, “enough to support myself,” he said.

After more than two decades in the job, plastic no longer holds any secrets from him.

“We can tell,” he said, examining a plastic bottle in front of him, rattling off the various plastic components.

“I love this job,” he added. “But what we need is integration, respect and inclusion.”

Plastic-eating mealworms found in Kenya give hope to waste crisis

“We should join”

As observers, waste pickers can sit in on negotiations, but do not have the right to participate despite their direct experience of the problem.

“If there’s going to be a discussion … we should be involved,” Doe said.

Mella Vidal, the garbage collector from Chileis also an expert on plastics and wants a ban on single-use items, which is discussed in the negotiations.

She also wants a redesign of plastic products to make things easier recyclingand gives the example of the paracetamol pill strip she takes to fight a cold.

“It’s PS (polystyrene). It has no market value. And on top of that, there’s a thin layer of aluminum on top. It’s an eco-design problem, like yogurt pots,” she said.

Mella Vidal no longer works in landfills, which have disappeared with new regulations in Chile on sanitary landfills.

Instead, she gets up at 5 a.m. to scour the street for recyclables before waste trucks pass by and sorts what she finds in the yard of her house.

“No machine can replace the relationship between a garbage collector and waste,” she said.

“A nail or a piece of glass can jam a sorting machine. Nothing stops us.”

In 2022, a UN resolution recognized the contribution of waste pickers to the fight against plastic pollution, and the sector wants it written into any agreement in Busan.

Ghana is grappling with crises caused by the world’s disposable fashion

A growing movement

They say it would open the door to legal recognition of their work.

“Many people prejudge us. They think we are criminals or drug addicts,” says Mella Vidal.

The profession is also dangerous, exposing workers to toxic chemicals, poorly regulated workplaces and even violence.

In 1992, 11 garbage collectors were killed Colombia by security guards who planned to sell their corpses to a medical school.

A twelfth was able to escape and alerted the police.

The crime shocked Colombia and helped spur a movement.

The day the massacre was revealed, March 1, is now International Waste Pickers Day.

About 460,000 people now belong International Alliance of Waste Pickersa trade union whose members participate in international meetings such as the negotiations in Busan.

Among their demands is better health protection given the toxic substances they are regularly exposed to.

“We don’t get support from the government or from anybody,” Doe said.

“And that’s because we’re not mentioned in the policies. So if we have a legal treaty that mentions waste pickers, we’ll get support.”

The fifth session of Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-5) is due to end on 1 December.