Pandemic Leaves Waste Pickers Out In The Cold

Urban waste pickers deliver an essential service without government support or recognition

- Preeti Mehra

The most crucial link in the waste management system of our country — the waste picker — is in a limbo thanks to the lockdown to contain the COVID-19 virus.

By any reckoning, the function of these pickers qualifies as an essential service since they undertake door-to-door collection in areas where they operate. Unfortunately, many waste pickers find that they have to report for work due to pressure from their employees but reaching their workplace safely is an ordeal due to harassment by the police.

Others, who work casually at dumpsites and landfills and earn on a daily basis by selling the dry garbage they collect, find all waste buying and recycling activity at a standstill, jeopardising their livelihood and, in the present context, their very next meal.

It’s not as if the government is unaware of the key role they play. As far back as 1995, a Report of the High-Power Committee on Solid Waste Management constituted by the Planning Commission called for integration of waste pickers into the system. Later, in 1998. an Expert Group constituted by the Supreme Court echoed the same recommendation. The latest Solid Waste Management Rules and Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, also recognise the contribution of waste pickers and hold that they be included in the solid waste management of local bodies.

But it seems waste pickers have not been taken seriously enough for they have not been included in any disaster management plan of the administration. And though thousands are working across the nation even during the lockdown, they are unable to sell the dry waste and earn a living.