India: Ragpickers take control

Young girls working at Pune city dump looking for items that can be recycled. For every kilogram of plastic collected they receive about one rupee (less than three cents). Photo: Jerry Galea/OxfamAUS

In the city of Pune in India, thousands of people rely on collecting recyclable waste to make a living. Known as ragpickers, these people go to apartment blocks, rubbish bins on the streets, and sometimes to the city dump to collect tin, paper, metal, glass … anything that can be cleaned up and resold to scrap dealers. For every kilogram of plastic they collect, a ragpicker will receive one rupee (less than three cents).

This may sound like a grim scenario, but for the ragpickers – 90 per cent of whom are women – things have improved over the last 10 years. In the early 1990s, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad began supporting Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) University in Pune on a project to help empower ragpickers to take control of their lives. SNDT University began with a literacy program to teach the women to read and write. However, the University soon realised that literacy was pointless if the women did not have an income – abolishing ragpicking was not the solution. What needed to be done was to ensure women could collect waste safely and effectively, without being exploited. Literacy would come later.

In the past, ragpickers were frequently harassed, exploited, and isolated. They were forced to collect rubbish from the huge city dump in Pune under hazardous conditions. Without gloves or boots, they would trawl through mounds of rubbish to find anything that could be recycled. Scrap dealers would not pay them fairly, and the ragpickers had no power to fight for a better deal. What’s more, many residents thought of them as thieves.

Today, the ragpickers are recognised as legitimate workers who play an important role as ‘environmentalists’ in the city of Pune. SNDT University has lobbied the Pune Municipal Council to issue ragpickers with identity cards – these identity cards signify that the women are official waste collectors and able to collect recycled waste directly from people’s homes. Collecting from homes is far safer, more hygienic and easier for the ragpickers. Residents will have often already separated their rubbish, so the women don’t have to spend hours sifting through and separating it before it can be resold.

Health insurance protects ragpickers

This woman collects tin, metal, glass and paper which can be recycled. OxfamAUS is supporting ragpickers to ensure they are paid fairly for their work and able to send their children to school. Photo: Jerry Galea /OxfamAUS

An important part of SNDT University’s work has been to help establish the Registered Association of Ragpickers, which acts as a type of union. This association has set up a small savings program, which means the women do not have to rely on money lenders, who may charge up to 50 per cent interest. The ragpickers are now able to save to send their children to school, or pay for important social events like weddings. The association has also formed a microcredit scheme, so that people are able to borrow small amounts of money to set up their own business and perhaps move out of ragpicking.

The ragpickers association is encouraging its members to send their children to school, instead of to work, promoting school enrolment by providing schoolbooks, and even scholarships. This is funded by the money that the ragpickers themselves contribute to the savings scheme – a small portion of the savings’ investment goes to the association. Laxmi Narayan from SNDT University says: “Many of the women strongly feel that they have done this work long enough. The women say that they want their children to have a better deal.”

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad’s support of SNDT University’s work with the ragpickers association has been vital over the last decade. The ragpickers association is almost able to run self-sufficiently, so soon it will no longer require funding from Oxfam Community Aid Abroad.

“It would be easy to take a welfare perspective with ragpickers and just give handouts, however, this is not going to help them in the long-term,” says India Program Coordinator Bruce Eady. “By giving people the capacity to earn a living, to save, and send their children to school, they can take control of their own lives.”

Find out more about our work in India.