Informal recyclers are critical for mitigating climate change

prepared by Neil Padukone

11, January 2010
 

SSurprising but true, waste pickers and its associated industry of middlemen, collectors, upper-level recyclers and reprocessors are fighting the phenomenon of global warming as they are acting as cooling agents in mitigating climate change.

The above assertion emerged at a discussion during a presentation on “Cooling Agents: The Role of Informal Recyclers in Mitigating Climate Change” ” by Bharati Chaturvedi and Malati Gadgil of the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group on Friday, 8 January, 2010 at Observer Research Foundation.

Informal sector recyclers account for nearly 90% of the recycling in Indian cities, while the rest is done by formal, private and government-supported mechanisms. Recycling is a process that reprocesses or reuses materials that would otherwise wind up in landfills, returning discarded materials to the market and effectively saving carbon space, Ms Chaturvedi and Ms Gadgil pointed out.

Using a Waste Reduction Model (WaRM) methodology developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the NGO – Chintan -- concluded that the informal recycling sector in Delhi alone accounts for green house gas (GHG) reductions of approximately 962,133 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year—over three times the reductions of the next largest formal recycling plant, the Timarpur RDF-WTE plant in Okhla, Delhi. This carbon space roughly equates to removing 176,215 passenger vehicles from the roads annually or providing electricity to about 133,444 American homes for one year.

As India grows and urbanizes in the coming years, the role these informal recyclers will play in saving carbon space will becoming increasingly important. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an environmental investment and credit scheme of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, concentrates exclusively on the formal sector, thus institutionally sidelining waste pickers and other smaller scale recyclers.

Despite their central role in not only climate change mitigation, but also sanitation and economics—informal recyclers are, after all, small scale entrepreneurs—formal development mechanisms tend to overlook them, in large part because of the stigma associated with waste collection and poverty. As we look for the answers to some of our most pressing challenges like building sustainable habitats, Chaturvedi and Gadgil argued, public policy and infrastructure must work with and enable, and empower the informal sector.

ORF Distinguished Fellow Sunjoy Joshi suggested that while this is certainly important, we must make sure that efforts to enable the informal sector do not over-regulate it to the extent that it loses the entrepreneurial spirit that drives it.

Director of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy A.K. Dhussa steered the discussion towards the specific uses of waste. As India’s energy needs increase and technologies improve, the question of what percent of waste should be sent for recycling versus waste-to-energy programs will come to the fore.

Ms Shyamala Mani of the Center for Environmental Energy, however, warned that as we look towards technological solutions to issues of solid waste management, we must be cognizant of the carbon emissions of these ‘solutions’ themselves.

Chintan is a non-profit organization that studies the economic, social, health, and environmental role, and advocates for the rights of the informal recycling sector in Delhi and throughout India. This means, among other actors, waste pickers, kabarivalas (middlemen), thiawalas (collectors), upper-level recyclers, and reprocessors

The report is prepared by Neil Padukone, Visiting Fellow, ORF
 

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