India: WITNESS begins new partnership with wastepickers

By: Ryan Schlief, Posted: Feb 18 09

Regions: India

Issues: Discrimination, Labor, Poverty

Tags: Chintan, Delhi, india, recycling, urban poor, wastepickers

The entrepreneurial spirit of the urban poor should be encouraged 

Many of the world’s cities rely on the work of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to collect, sort, process and dispose or recycle what urban dwellers throw away. Operating independently or at times in collectives, this workforce earns an income, not from the city government itself, but from the house-to-house collection of waste, from the sale of scrap materials and from recycling.