INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF WASTE PICKERS

The International Alliance of Waste Pickers is a union of waste picker organizations representing more than 460,000 workers across 34 countries
Supported by Logo WIEGO

November 14, 2011


Check translation:

Download PDF of the September 2011 Africa newsletter.

India’s waste pickers – I saw a miracle

Mmapula Baloyi is not looking like a waste picker today. She is smartly dressed as she smilingly meets us inside the ‘stop nonsense wall’ that surrounds Temba, the site where she works. >> read the post

Same issues world over

The AIW (Indian Alliance of Waste Pickers) workshop on Landfill Workers Struggles and Strategies held in June this year in Mumbai with a view to understanding the situation of waste pickers working in landfills across the country and abroad. >> read the post

Learning from India

Aliou Faye is a 34 years old Senegalese waste picker who has worked in Mbeubeuss landfill in Dakar for the last 16 years. He is vice-president of the waste pickers’ organisation in his landfill, Bokk Diomm. >> read the post

Tshwane: power through networking

In the 1990s the Tshwane municipality in South Africa engaged in a number of failed projects with waste pickers. These included a project that hired waste pickers to make crafts out of recyclable material. It also included at a private company with interests in waste management helping waste pickers to set up cooperatives and run buy-back centres for the cooperatives. However the positive that came out of these failures was that waste pickers formed committees on dumps and this provided the base for independent organizing. >> read the post

Hands in trash, heads held high

In September last year at an important meeting of waste collectors in Dakar, Senegal StreetNet International encouraged its Africa affiliates to organize waste pickers. >> read the post

Waste pickers! COP17 is important

Here we go again, the yearly United Nations (UN) climate summit is approaching in Durban at the end of the year, with its usual endless list of strange words that make us scratch our heads in confusion. >> read the post

False solutions to climate change – CDM incineration and landfill gas systems

Waste has become an important item on the international agenda for climate change. >> read the post

Organising Tips 1 – Waste pickers

This column will be a regular feature for waste pickers and support organizations who are helping waste pickers to organize themselves. In each newsletter we will include some organizing tips. >> read the post

 

Preparing for COP17 – Waste pickers get active

7 – 8 September 2011 Johannesburg Waste and Climate Change Workshop

1 – 2 December 2011 Durban Waste pickers meeting during COP17

3 December 2011 COP Day of Action

>> get more details

 

Global Waste Picker events calendar

Coordination Meeting MNCR and LAWPN, Sao Paulo-Brasil, end August

Fund raising workshop for AIW, India, end August

Clinton Global Initiative- informal sector recycling meeting, New York-USA, mid September

Expocatadora, Sao Paulo-Brasil, early November

ILO workshop, India, November

Launch of Global Wastepickers website, mid November

COP 17, Durban SouthAfrica, late November

 >> get more details

 

Photo by Melanie Samson

“ Initially we thought that only the Latin Americans were organising, but
now we are proud that internationally while it may be that our hands are
in the trash, but our head is held high.”
Delegate, waste pickers’ meeting Senegal, Dakar, September 2010

Useful contacts

Coordinator of WIEGO AFrica Waste Picker Programme – Melanie Samson email: melanie.samson@wiego.org

WIEGO website – www.wiego.org

Wiego address: 521 Royal Exchange, Manchester, M2 7EN, United Kingdom

Inclusive Cities website – www.inclusivecities.org

GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) website – http://www.no-burn.org/