Giving power to waste pickers to boost the circular economy

Kumudha is used to early starts. Formerly a waste picker, she would begin her day at 5 a.m., sorting through garbage in the streets and landfills of south Bengaluru, the largest city in Karnataka state, southern India, in the hope of recovering items that could be sold on to neighborhood scrap shops and recycling facilities. 

The work was long and exhausting and she would often face harassment and discrimination. “If we went to collect the waste, the police would accuse us of theft. People would shoo us away saying, ‘they are waste pickers; they are unhygienic,’” she said.

There are an estimated 35,000 waste pickers working informally in Bengaluru, and up to 4 million across India. The majority have low levels of education and come from the lower castes of Indian society. “These are traditionally people who have come from outside the city,” said Akshay Soni from The/Nudge Institute, an Indian nonprofit focused on poverty alleviation and serving as the backbone of the Saamuhika Shakti project, which aims to lift waste pickers out of poverty. “As countries urbanize, you move from rural India to urban India, you come into a city, but you're not skillful enough … hence, waste picking becomes a gateway occupation,” he said.

Every day in Bengaluru, waste pickers sift over 1,000 tons of recyclable material, which amounts to around a third of the city’s generated waste. But despite their invaluable role, they remain a marginalized and impoverished group, earning an average income of about 150-200 Indian rupees a day — the equivalent of just $2.71-$3.62.

Collective impact for systems-level change

With so many interlinked challenges involved, a holistic, systems-level approach was necessary. With this in mind the project follows the “collective impact” method, which differs from the traditional nonprofit model by bringing in multiple partners and joining up expertise.

“Collective impact offers the best of both worlds, where you bring together a group of specialists to solve [problems] for a single community,” Soni said. This means that solutions are more likely to lead to real long-term change, he explained.

As collective impact is a relatively new way of working, at least in India, building trust among the different partners has been the biggest challenge, Soni said. 

The/Nudge Institute, as the “independent backbone,” fills a crucial strategic role in fostering collaboration according to each partner’s particular strengths, while not playing an implementing role itself. “If you give more power to one partner at the table, sooner or later that partner begins to drive the vision,” Soni explained. “A backbone’s job is to ensure that everyone's got an equal stake at the table, everyone's doing their job and pulling towards the same vision of collaborating with each other.” 

Four years into the project, collaboration has deepened significantly, Bystedt said, adding that partners now not only work on activities together but also share knowledge, resources and infrastructure.

Putting communities at the heart of program design

Community-centered program design has been a key part of Saamuhika Shakti since its inception, Bystedt said. “We don't think that the design of programs should be led by the funders. It should be designed with and by the primary actors … the people who have lived experience of a social problem.” 

Saamuhika Shakti has approached this in several ways, she explained. One way is through monthly community forums, called “Namma Jagali” — which means “my area” in Kannada, the local language. These gatherings are attended by community members, including waste pickers, to share feedback and discuss any problems. “In the nonprofit world, sustainability has to be about what portion of your intervention will stay embedded in the community after you leave. The community needs to have skin in the game,” Soni said. 

Other aspects include designating community resource persons — community members who become part of the partners’ project teams. “They constantly make sure that they're feeding into the community and consulting them and bringing them on board all the way,” Bystedt said.

Community-centeredness also helps to ensure the initiative doesn’t stray from its original purpose of serving waste pickers, Soni said. “That's the true customer, not the person who's paying the money,” he said.