Waste Pickers and Their Practices of Insurgency and Environmental Stewardship

Abstract

Informed by different grassroots learning and educational practices engaged in waste management, and drawing from the concepts of insurgent citizenship and environmental stewardship, we examine the role of waste picker organizations and movements in creating new pathways towards more sustainable environmental waste governance. Two case studies (Argentina and Brazil) demonstrate how waste pickers inform and educate the general public and raise the awareness of socio-environmental questions related to waste management. Different educational practices are used as strategies to confront citizens with their waste: to see waste as a consumption problem, resource, and income source. Our paper draws on grassroots learning (social movement learning and insurgent learning) and education (stewardship) aimed at the transformation of waste practices. We argue that waste pickers play an important role in knowledge production promoting recycling, in landfilling less and recovering more resources. We conclude that waste pickers act as insurgent citizens and also are environmental stewards.

Grassroots Eco-Social Innovations Driving Inclusive Circular Economy

“…Since the mid 2000s, waste pickers have emerged as a collective of organizations, called networks (Cooperativa de 2o Grau) generating innovative solutions for many pressing challenges (Feola & Nunes, 2014). Waste picker leaders have identified new opportunities that have arisen with growing awareness of the environmental and social impacts related to inappropriate handling of waste, particularly by engaging in environmental education in their communities, giving talks at schools or at businesses (Gutberlet, Sorroche, Martins Baeder, Zapata & Zapata Campos, 2021).…”

Hepatitis E Virus Research in Brazil: Looking Back and Forwards

“…Further studies have focused on individuals at (presumptive) high risk of exposure to HEV, such as urban garbage collectors, and illicit non-injecting drug users. Recyclable waste pickers (RWP) have close contact with garbage, wasted food, and polluted water, being at high occupational risk of infection with gastroenteric pathogens [ 94 ]. Although hepatitis E and A viruses can be transmitted by contaminated water or food, the occupational risk for those workers has been less assessed.…”

GEOGRAPHIES OF EXCLUSION: Reproducing Dispossession and Erasure within a Waste Picker Organization in Mumbai

“…Informal waste workers do not necessarily unite for collective struggle but in order to make particular claims that may reassert their socio‐political positions. Most of the literature (Hayami et al ., 2006; Viljoen et al ., 2012; Gutberlet et al ., 2021; Schenck et al ., 2021) shies away from acknowledging the different positionalities, voices and lived experiences that offer a critical perspective on the community's heterogeneity. For instance, Makina and Lawhon (2022) reveal how permissions were granted to bin workers in Tshwane (South Africa), but they fail to address which workers were most at risk or how their exchanges were shaped in the first place.…”