The second National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS) (DEA, 2011: 27) commits government to “provide guidance to municipalities and industry on measures to improve the working conditions of waste-pickers”. Government has undertaken a number of activities to fulfil this mandate.
In 2012, the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, which was then known as the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), held a workshop in East London at which municipalities, industry and waste pickers acknowledged waste pickers’ contributions to the recycling economy, and affirmed that waste pickers must be included in the formal system (DEA, 2012).
In 2015, DEA hosted a national workshop for waste pickers, industry, research organisations and government to discuss how this could be done. The workshop focused on the legal framework, the institutional framework and operational issues related to the formal inclusion of waste pickers (DEA, 2015). The workshop also discussed the findings of a research project on waste pickers commissioned by DEA titled Determination of the extent and role of waste-picking in South Africa (DEA, 2016b).
Work then shifted to focus on how such guidance can be provided. In April 2016, the South African Cities Network (SACN) held a workshop that brought the metros and waste pickers together to discuss their experiences of waste picker integration (SACN, 2016).
Subsequently, in November 2016, DEA hosted a workshop where Latin American experts shared their extensive experience on waste picker integration with South African stakeholders, including representatives from government, industry, waste picker organisations and NGOs (DEA, 2016a). That workshop was the first concrete step towards developing this Guideline.
Inspired by the Brazilian experience (Dias, 2011a; Gutberlet, 2008), this Guideline on Waste Picker Integration was developed through a participatory stakeholder process that drew on evidence from academic research, as well as international experiences and stakeholders’ expertise. The knowledge, insights and needs of waste pickers were centred in the process. Between June 2017 and April 2019, government convened a Waste Picker Integration National Stakeholder Working Group (SWG) that included representatives from waste picker organisations, industry associations, municipalities, national government departments and NGOs.
This Guideline is the outcome of six participatory SWG workshops facilitated by Dr Melanie Samson (University of the Witwatersrand), who wrote the guideline. On April 9, 2019, DEA hosted a one day Waste Picker Integration Workshop to present the draft Guideline and receive feedback from a wider group of stakeholders. The Guideline was informed by extensive research conducted by a team at the University of the Witwatersrand led by Dr. Samson under the Department of Science and Technology’s research grant project Lessons from waste picker integration initiatives. The project received additional funding from DEA. Research conducted by other universities and science councils in South Africa over the past decade also played an important role in developing the Guideline. One of the stakeholder workshops took the form of a research conference where researchers shared their findings related to waste pickers with SWG members The Guideline drew inspiration from several similar guidelines produced for Latin America, India and the Balkans (Chikarmane, 2012; Chintan, 2014; IADB, 2013; Scheinberg et al., 2018) and benefited greatly from inputs by leading global and national experts.
Source: Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries and Department of Science and Innovation (2020). Waste picker integration guideline for South Africa: Building the Recycling Economy and Improving Livelihoods through Integration of the Informal Sector. DEFF and DST: Pretoria.
