Jutta Gutberlet

By Jutta Gutberlet

Worldwide cities are rapidly expanding, creating visible environmental and social challenges. The generation of waste is one of the central concerns in urban agglomerations, particularly in the global South, where inadequacies, absences and weaknesses shape the local waste management system. Uneven geographic development has created obvious spaces of exclusion and neglect. In response, informal and organized waste pickers engage in selective waste collection and recycling, serving their community and the environment. These contributions are still mostly unrecognized and unaccounted for. This chapter begins with emphasizing the challenges of urban growth, consumption, poverty and waste. In the global South, every day millions of informal waste pickers reclaim recyclables from household waste to earn their living. In doing so they make an important contribution to reducing the carbon footprint of cities, recovering resources, improving environmental conditions and health creating jobs and income among the poor, particularly in low-income residential areas. This chapter discusses the organization of these initiatives into networks and examines the challenges and benefits of such practices that promote grassroots resilience and contribute to reducing both the adverse impacts of cities on climate and environmental change (UN sustainable development target # 11.6) as well as urban poverty (Goal # 8).

Part of the book: Urban Agglomeration