Good News: Fiji recognises “waste pickers” as environmental heroes

Fiji has become the first nation in the Pacific to recognise “waste pickers”, who collect, repurpose and sell rubbish, as environmental champions, following a council event in Lautoka. 

These workers are typically women, children and migrants living in poverty. The job comes with many health risks, as workers are exposed to contaminants and hazardous materials, and those who work at open dumps face risks caused by trucks, fires and surface slides. 

They also face societal stigma: They remove millions of tons of carbon dioxide each year from landfills, yet they are often looked down on and treated poorly. Talking to ABC News, Tikitoro from Fiji said that her children are made fun of at school. “The students laugh and point at them,” she shared. 

At a council event on July 20, 2022, in Lautoka, Fiji acknowledged the environmental benefits that these workers are providing. Thirty women who take part in informal waste picking were officially registered, given access to bank accounts and provided with protective gear to make their jobs safer. 

A new name was also created for these workers: Collection Pillars of Recycling. The name emerged from a workshop organised with International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre and the Pacific Recycling Foundation. 

This is happening next week!
Recognising and empowering women informal waste pickers and spreading the message of proper waste managmnt.
IUCN's work on plastics and waste managmnt in #Fiji, #Samoa and #Vanuatu is part of the Plastic Waste Free Islands project funded by @noradno pic.twitter.com/AufarDnGQP

— IUCN Oceania (@IUCN_Oceania) June 18, 2022

Amitesh Deo, founder of the Pacific Recycling Foundation, told the Fiji Sun, “The workshop was about human rights, gender, legal literacy and financial literacy. One of the key findings in that workshop was the stigma attached to waste picking, and one of the contributors to the stigma was the name ‘informal waste pickers’.”

With around 20 million people picking waste for a living around the world, it is important that they are treated with dignity and recognised for the highly valuable work that they do. 

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