Sonia Dias Waste and Development – Perspectives from the Ground »,
Colombia
The Constitutional Court (April 2009) ruled in favor of waste pickers by granting them customary rights to access, sort and recycle reclaimable materials (Ruiz-Restrepo, 2008).
The impact of these examples is significant.National and regional laws establish the normative terrain for the activity. In some countries, the laws have created special financial mechanisms for capacity building and for access to funds for infrastructure. Also, waste pickers have been able to secure customary rights to waste at municipal level by using the law. Policies for integration of waste pickers as legitimate service providers pave the way to modernization of solid waste management systems coupled with livelihood protection. (…)
Ruiz-Restrepo, Adriana (2008), The Poor Shall Not Remain Small: Broadening access of the organized poor to the market by means of strengthening NPOs through Constitutional Justice (The Case of the ARB-Colombia). Paper presented at Global Network of Government Innovators, Ash Institute at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, November 2007. The Hague, Netherlands. www.innovations.harvard.edu. Unabridged version available in http://adriruiz.wordpress.com/
(…) Colombia makes a strong case for the power of organizing. The organizing process in this country goes as far back as 1962, when the first cooperative was created in Medellín. The 1990´s saw the creation of the ARB (the Association of Recyclers of Bogota) and the ANR (National Association of Recyclers). The year of 2009 saw a major breakthrough with the legal battle won by waste pickers, which guaranteed waste pickers’ rights to recyclables in Cali15. More recently, they were able to stop a multi-billion dollars public bid for waste collection in the city of Bogota, where the Constitutional court argued in favor of the demands made by the Bogota Waste Picker Association, and canceled the public bidding process (Parra & Fernandez, 2012). Justice Juan Carlos Henao said that the constitutional rights of waste pickers had not been respected and that Bogota Municipality needed to create a new plan with inclusion of all waste pickers15.
15 See CIVISOL note on this case on www.civisol.org .
The waste pickers of India are also organizing themselves and have formed a national network – the Alliance of Indian Waste Pickers (AIW) – with 35 organizations working with, and comprised of, waste pickers with a presence in 22 cities across India
Waste pickers around the world are fighting many struggles on varied fronts: the threat of privatization of municipal solid waste management services faced by the zabaleen in Cairo, and waste pickers in Delhi;