Ladies and gentlemen the elected municipal officials, you must stop suppressing waste picking and trading, talking about doing so or obsessing over it! Rather, create new market areas as biffins, everywhere, are waiting and expecting a policy worthy of the name, which recognizes the value of the junk trade and provides the space it deserves. Let us speed up the junk business! All to the junk market!
The young, uniformed cartoneros caught the attention of passersby in the crowd not only because of the size of the group – 35 – but because of the worker’s uniform they wore for the pilgrimage. It consists of dark blue pants and jackets lined with neon green strips for visibility. It clearly marked them as workers. The members of the MTE stood out for another reason. They conveyed a seriousness that was in contrast to the many of the chatty, smart phone-carrying teenagers. They are young workers, and they seem older than their years.
A Montevideo bill proposed for January 2014 would create “exclusionary zones” where waste pickers and their horse-drawn carts would not be allowed to enter. The bill involves not only the exclusion of waste pickers but the privatization of recyclables only accessible to so-called “authorized” parties.
MNCR (Brazil’s national waste pickers’ movement) pledges its continual support of the protests happening across Brazil for concrete goals of social and environmental justice but explains why it’s important to keep informed and aware about conservative, elitist and prejudiced groups that have been trying to appropriate the protests to promote their own interests, with the backing of and manipulation by the Brazilian elite and the media monopoly.
El Día Mundial del Reciclaje los recicladores de Bogotá fueran a las calles para defender la dignidad y el trabajo y las conquistas, exigiendo respeto a la categoría.
In recognition of International Labour Day, or May Day, AIKMM and its associate organization NALR hosted a program to promote solidarity amongst the waste collectors in northeast Delhi.
The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), India, authorities had been shockingly apathetic to the inhuman treatment to over 400 waste workers employed by its contractor BVG Kshitij. Almost a week ago, the Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP) started a sit-in to protest for this situation.
The South African Waste Picker’s Association (SAWPA) is in solidarity with waste pickers across the globe. We would like to commemorate the day of remembrance of all waste pickers around the world who die on the streets or landfills. Those Men and Women who we witness everyday being brutalized, beaten to death, shot, run over by trucks while trying to earn a living through waste recycling.
