Although it is a widely existing phenomenon in the countries of the Global South, waste picking is increasingly visible in the cities of the North, although it remains under researched. In this article, a literature review is made in order to observe how waste picking is being conceptualised from an academic perspective, as well as to highlight its main dimensions in the context of the Global North. The results show that in the Global North the waste pickers tend to be labelled as ethnic minorities, or migrants in a situation of social exclusion. This justifies the fact that one of the main academic debates is about the processes of discrimination and stigma surrounding waste picking, as well as their living and working conditions. However, little is said about its environmental contributions nor on the ways to integrate waste picking into formal waste systems. The public policies currently used to grapple with waste picking tend to prioritise prohibitions and persecution, often paralleled with social policies. Yet, there are few policies capable of recognising the environmental benefits of waste picking and looking to integrate waste pickers into the social fabric.

An analysis of informal work: The case of SubSaharan scrap metal waste pickers in the city of Barcelona

Resumen 1 : Se describe y analiza los otros trabajos y los otros trabajadores en la ciudad de Barcelona (España) por medio de un caso particular, los chatarreros subsaharianos: reciclador, buzo, cartonero, minador, catador, wastepicker. Partiendo de perspectivas teóricas, de origen latinoamericano, sobre el trabajo informal y la economía popular, sumado a otras teorías más cercanas geográfica y contextualmente, se trata de entender la construcción social de trabajos y grupos de trabajadores no hegemónicos, tejiendo puntos en común y aportaciones cruzadas. Al mismo tiempo, contextualiza los otros trabajos a nivel estructural y evidencia la relación entre formas de trabajo y sujetos. La tarea de estudiar, entender y explicar los otros trabajos y los otros trabajadores en el mundo es importante y urgente, los cambios en el mundo del trabajo, el aumento de los llamados informales y las dinámicas transversales urbanas hacen necesaria la comparación y la complementariedad en el análisis.

Feminist social reproduction theories and approaches capture multiple scales of analysis, from everyday care work within households to the reproductive aspects of welfare systems such as health and education. Feminist thinkers draw our attention to the gendered, racialized, and classed intersections embedded within production processes, by analyzing the ecological, biological, and social dimensions of reproduction. Recent critical interventions into “pluralizing” social reproduction approaches indicate that significant domains of our socioeconomic and cultural lives remain undertheorized within feminist discussions. This article explores waste as a key site of social reproductive labor, which remains marginal within feminist scholarship. Waste as an analytical point of departure showcases the tension between capitalism and the environment, and harbors toxic and stigmatized workspaces. This paper combines Marxist feminist perspectives with discard studies to theorize how waste work is fundamental to the biological and the socioeconomic reproduction of the society.

Millions of informal waste pickers (IWPs) form an integral part of the waste management systems of cities around the world, playing a vital yet undervalued role for environmental sustainability and urban circularity. A well-known phenomenon in the Global South, informal waste picking is becoming more visible in Global North cities, but it is still under-researched, especially in quantitative terms. This study analyses and quantitatively estimates the role of IWPs in the waste management system of the city of Barcelona. We study IWPs’ role in material, environmental and monetary terms, through a mixed-methods approach combining field observations, surveys, stakeholder interviews and secondary data analysis. Our findings show that around 2,000 IWPs operate in Barcelona under very precarious conditions, working almost 60 hours/week for 2€/hour. They are responsible for around 40% of the city’s metal waste collection, which contributes to save at least 42-47 thousand tonnes of CO2 emissions and 48-80 thousand m3 of water every year. We conclude that IWPs play an essential role in the waste management system of the city of Barcelona under very exploitative conditions, providing cheap labour and materials for the recycling sector while enhancing the circularity of the city’s metabolism. Achieving a more just urban waste governance, in Barcelona as in other cities of the Global North, requires recognising IWPs’ role and the value they create, both politically and economically, and develop policy schemes that protect and dignify this activity and foster their socio-economic inclusion.