{"id":425430,"date":"2024-11-29T22:26:31","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T22:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=425430"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Waste-pickers-battle-for-recognition-at-plastic-treaty-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Waste-pickers-battle-for-recognition-at-plastic-treaty-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Waste pickers battle for recognition at plastic treaty talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

As diplomats negotiate behind closed doors in Busan on a treaty to curb plastic pollution, the waste pickers who are on the front lines of the problem are fighting for recognition.<\/p>\n

Between 20 and 34 million people are believed to work as waste pickers worldwide, playing a crucial role in recovering recyclable material.<\/p>\n

“We’re the biggest business in the world,” 54-year-old Maria Soledad Mella Vidal, a Chilean waste picker, told AFP.<\/p>\n

“We don’t have money, infrastructure or machinery… but we are extremely proud because our contribution to the environment is real.”<\/p>\n

Representatives of nearly 200 nations are gathered in South Korea to agree on a landmark deal to curb plastic pollution that litters the planet.<\/p>\n

Just nine percent of plastic is currently recycled globally.<\/p>\n

But estimates suggest over half of what is recycled is recovered by waste pickers.<\/p>\n

Johnson Doe joined the sector at 16 in Ghana’s capital Accra.<\/p>\n

“There was no formal job around, so the only work to do was to be a waste picker,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He earns three dollars a day on average, “enough to sustain myself”, he said.<\/p>\n

After more than two decades in the job, plastic no longer holds any secrets for him.<\/p>\n

“We can tell,” he said, examining a plastic bottle placed before him and rattling off the different plastic components.<\/p>\n

“I love this job,” he added. “But what we need is integration, respect and inclusion.”<\/p>\n

– ‘We should be involved’ –<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

As observers, waste pickers can sit in on negotiations, but do not have the right to participate despite their direct experience with the problem.<\/p>\n

“If there is a discussion… we should be involved,” Doe said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

Mella Vidal no longer works at dump sites, which have disappeared with new rules in Chile on sanitary landfills.<\/p>\n

Instead, she gets up at 5:00 am to scour the street for recyclables before waste trucks pass through, sorting what she finds in the courtyard of her house.<\/p>\n

“No machine can replace the relationship between a waste picker and waste,” she said.<\/p>\n

“A nail or a piece of glass can jam a sorting machine. Nothing stops us.”<\/p>\n

In 2022, a UN resolution recognised the contribution of waste pickers to the fight against plastic pollution, and the sector wants that enshrined in any deal in Busan.<\/p>\n

– A growing movement –<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

They say it would open the door to legal recognition of their work.<\/p>\n

“A lot of people prejudge us. They think we’re criminals or drug addicts,” said Mella Vidal.<\/p>\n

The profession is also dangerous, exposing workers to toxic chemicals, poorly regulated work sites and even violence.<\/p>\n

In 1992, 11 waste pickers were killed in Colombia by security guards who planned to sell their corpses to a medical school.<\/p>\n

A twelfth was able to escape and alert police.<\/p>\n

The crime shocked Colombia and helped galvanise a movement.<\/p>\n

March 1, the day the massacre was uncovered, is now International Waste Pickers Day.<\/p>\n

About 460,000 people now belong to the International Alliance of Waste Pickers, a union whose members attend international meetings like the negotiations in Busan.<\/p>\n

Among their demands is better health protection given the toxic substances to which they are regularly exposed.<\/p>\n

“We are not getting support from the government or from anybody,” said Doe.<\/p>\n

“And it’s because we are not mentioned in the policies. So if we have a legal treaty that mentions waste pickers, we will have support.”<\/p>\n

roc\/sah\/sco<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Waste pickers are seeking recognition in any new treaty to curb plastic pollution<\/p>\n

-Michele Spatari
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

A fisherman at his village on Thailand’s southern island of Koh Chang carries bags of plastic waste to sell<\/p>\n

-MANAN VATSYAYANA
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As diplomats negotiate behind closed doors in Busan on a treaty to curb plastic pollution,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}