Between 20 and 34 million people are believed to work as waste pickers worldwide, playing a crucial role in recovering recyclable material.
“We’re the biggest business in the world,” 54-year-old Maria Soledad Mella Vidal, a Chilean waste picker, told AFP.
“We don’t have money, infrastructure or machinery… but we are extremely proud because our contribution to the environment is real.”
Representatives of nearly 200 nations are gathered in South Korea to agree on a landmark deal to curb plastic pollution that litters the planet.
Just nine percent of plastic is currently recycled globally.
But estimates suggest over half of what is recycled is recovered by waste pickers.
Johnson Doe joined the sector at 16 in Ghana’s capital Accra.
“There was no formal job around, so the only work to do was to be a waste picker,” he told AFP.
Every day, the 39-year-old waits for waste trucks to arrive at one of the city’s dumps so he can collect recyclable items for sale to an intermediary.
He earns three dollars a day on average, “enough to sustain myself”, he said.
After more than two decades in the job, plastic no longer holds any secrets for him.
“We can tell,” he said, examining a plastic bottle placed before him and rattling off the different plastic components.
“I love this job,” he added. “But what we need is integration, respect and inclusion.”
As observers, waste pickers can sit in on negotiations, but do not have the right to participate despite their direct experience with the problem.
“If there is a discussion… we should be involved,” Doe said.
Mella Vidal, the waste picker from Chile, is also an expert on plastics and wants a ban on single-use items, which is under discussion in the negotiations.
She also wants a redesign of plastic products to facilitate recycling, giving the example of the pill strip for the paracetamol she is taking to combat a cold.
“It’s PS (polystyrene). It has no value in the market. And on top of that, there’s a thin layer of aluminium stuck on top. It’s an eco-design problem, like yoghurt pots,” she said.
Mella Vidal no longer works at dump sites, which have disappeared with new rules in Chile on sanitary landfills.
