India Insights: Invisible Work, Invisible Recognition – The Situation And Significance Of Waste Pickers In Delhi.
Shivam Tyagi
Trades that involve many forms of cleaning are often stigmatized as subordinate, seen as somewhat inferior. The elitist view that surrounds these professions create an environment where the workers are, not only undervalued/paid, but also turned invisible. It is seen as degrading, dirty. Within the plethora of nations that suffer from this exact syndrome, India lies amongst them. Landfill workers, street sweepers, waste pickers are some of the invisible trades to are foundational to Delhi’s functioning, although frequently disregarded by Indian society. From dawn to dusk, informal waste pickers, commonly known as
“rag pickers” are out on the streets, serving as a “filter” to Delhi’s recycling. They are the invisible pillar of the city.
Households dispose of their waste. Waste pickers scavenge through the rubbish to sort out whether there are sellable items. Then, Kabadiwalas, “scrap dealers”, purchase the goods sold by waste pickers. The unsold items are directed to the recycling facility to be properly disposed of. Whatever is left unpurchased or not recycled is directed to the landfills, where it will produce toxic methane gas which will go into the atmosphere and bleed into the soil. The International Labour Organization (ILO) alongside the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group have calculated that there are between 1.5 to 4 million informal waste pickers in India, with 300,000 of those being only in Delhi. Numbers may vary as the organization faced poor conditions to estimate this amount. But, regardless of what the variant may be, the estimative still present staggering numbers.
Furthermore, this report also presented that these workers account for between 60% to 70% of all urban waste of recyclable, establishing itself as a backbone of India’s capital. It is also known that the daily contribution of waste pickers to Delhi’s recycling – they recycle between 20% to 25% of the 10,000 metric tons of produced rubbish. The importance of their work is monumental, mostly when considering the magnitude and extension of dump sites. Landfills colossally impact Delhi’s environment through the emission of toxic methane, arguably more harmful than carbon emissions, and frequent ignition of the mountains of waste. Nevertheless, rag pickers significantly diminish the damage done by landfills, given how meticulous their process of sorting through rubbish is. Without these workers, Delhi would be drowning in waste, being suffocated by both non-recycling and recyclable materials.
It is rather imperative to disclose the difference between rag pickers and landfill workers. Even though one may confuse the two, there are key distinctions among them. Whereas dump site workers remain within the borders of the landfills, waste pickers infiltrate several areas of the city. Rag pickers are seen on the streets, dump sites, markets, and rubbish bins. Although both seek for waste valuable enough to be sellable, landfill workers scavenge through the sites after the whole recyclable process, seeking through what have might have “passed by” it. Waste pickers, on the other hand, are vital to recycling, since they are the ones that remove several items in order to resell them. In sum, the two main distinctions are: location and presence in the waste disposal stage.
The middlemen. The filter. A foundation. The importance of waste pickers cannot be overstated. Millions of workers often wake up within the earliest hours of the day and have their deserved rest only after excruciatingly long hours, under poor safety and hygienic conditions. All this unimaginable work to receive an underwhelming and low pay: less than 10,000, in average, rupees per month, according to the United Nations Development Programmed (UNDPC). This line of work is said to be most commonly informal, as a significant portion of workers not being educated, hindering their possibility of achieving a better paying position in the job market. Indeed, there are formal jobs in the field that provide a steadier income and living, however, there are very little vacancies, forcing workers to seek unsupported and unregulated work. In a convolution of scholarity, lack of opportunities, trade stigma and stereotype, ragpickers are found within India’s lowest caste, Dalits, excluded from Indian society.
By any means this job is a choice, a vocation – it is a necessity. During an interview with the London School of Economics and Political Science’s (LSE) Business Review, a worker, Shreya, gave readers a brief insight on how it is to be a ragpicker. “Our livelihood is in this work. Only then can we fill our stomachs. Work; earn in the day; and then get the flour, oil, rice, tomato, onion, etc.; and then cook food”. The survival aspect that englobes the trade is the guiding hand, the deciding factor, for one to pursue it. The unfortunate scenario hunger ragpickers found themselves prior to joining this workforce is a highly motivating factor for the incessant and physically, psychologically and emotionally demanding job.
Among all waste pickers, women, which compose a large sum of the workforce, are at the most fragile position. Parallelly to their work on the streets, women also have to balance domestic work on top of everything. Domestic work and housekeeping are present in the reality of most working women, regardless of the sector. Juggling formal and domestic work is a challenge in of itself, as taking care of the children, the house and food, is incredibly demanding. It is also unpaid. In Latin American feminist literature, this is named “double burden” or “dupla jornada”, which explains the never-ending working cycle. Hence, after a workday, waste picker women return home to care for their children and husbands. In addition, a study discovered that these women’s health is overwhelmingly bad, drawing the conclusion that being expose to toxic gases, poor hygiene in the working environments and tobacco consumption.
Overall, rag pickers are like a building infrastructure – foundational, however, invisible. The current livelihood of these workers not only reflects societal prejudice towards workers in the cleaning sector but also stagnates them in a job with no prospects, security, safety, nor just pay. The work in itself is arduous and necessary to Delhi’s functioning; nonetheless, it is still perceived as degrading by the overall society.
