WASTE PICKERS
Waste Picker Mapping in Myanmar: A Socioeconomic Study of Waste Pickers
Waste picking is an essential and well established service for managing resources in Myanmar. Due to the country’s decades long political struggle, resource scarcity was common for most materials, and the waste picking sector grew organically with the increased use of inorganic materials and the high value reused, repaired and recycled items received on the market.
This study focuses on Yangon and Hpa an (regional capital of Kayin) to take stock of the current situation faced by the waste picker community. 348 waste picker took part in the research and went through a set of questions which were analysed from two main perspectives: The category of picking (Buyers are purchasing valuables, Collectors collect waste and extract valuables, Pickers extract valuables) and by gender.
The key results for the 3 categories and for gender are summarized in a 20-dimensional space ranging over 6 segments. From the perspective of categories, Pickers face the more challenges: low rate of identification, high child labour, low income, etc. From the perspective of gender the working environment is more challenging for women in general and women take more often the role of being Picker rather than a Collector or Buyer.
Independently of the challenges of working in the sector it is also a lost resort people can fall back on when they are in crisis. The sector requires little prior knowledge or investment and is open for anyone who is willing to do this work. This workforce of over 300 waste pickers per 100,000 citizens is able to recover 37% of inorganic material going to dump. And here the limiting factor is not the capacity of waste pickers, but the incapacity of producers making package material which carry an inherent value worth enough to be picked.
This report was commissioned by the International Alliance of Waste Pickers.
