Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City has begun enacting policy to integrate the area´s informal waste workers (IWW) into its garbage station in tandem with European Union-funded project, PRISM.[break]
Pradeep Amatya, chief of the Environment and Sanitation Section of Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City, said the station is distributing masks, gloves, and gumboots to acknowledge the role its 26 informal workers have in local garbage processing.
Lalitpur is also in the process of building an area for the IWWs -- some aged as young as 14-year-old -- fitted with showers, toilets, and other facilities aimed at improving the workers´ health and hygiene.
Pushkar Lal Shrestha, executive director of CIUD -- an implementing partner of PRISM -- said he is also in talks with Kritipur and Madhyapur Thimi municipalities, but the process of further implementation is being held back.
Kathmandu district is particularly hesitant to commit to changing the situation of its IWWs largely due to its past experiences with NGOs and foreign funding, Shrestha and Amatya said.
German aid agency GTZ was involved in Kathmandu´s solid waste management until 1990, when it withdrew amid reports of management chaos and demands by IWWs to resettle them on government land.
Rabin Man Shrestha, chief of Kathmandu Metropolitan City´s Environment Management Division, told Republica that his office is "interested in practical action" on IWWs but things were being held back by "difficulties".
He said that past problems with the GTZ project have made the division wary about working with NGOs and that it was "worried" that empowered IWWs would again try to make claims to its land.
A majority of IWWs present at the valley´s waste stations -- where they scavenge for bits of trash to re-sell to private dealers -- are workers from India struggling to make a wage in Nepal.
Lalitpur´s Pradeep Amatya said 23 of his waste station´s 26 IWW are Indians. He said that "if they were Nepali citizens, society would be doing a bit more for them".
PRISM estimates there are between 10,000 and 15,000 waste-pickers and 700 to 800 waste scrap dealers (kabadis) present in the Kathmandu Valley.
The project, which received 1.5 million euros in funding, is aiming to improve the place of IWWs in Nepali society, where many of them face daily derision and abuse.
Ajay Poddar, 25, formally from India, has been working as an IWW in Nepal for 12 years. "All the other jobs here are too hard to get, so from childhood I have not thought of another job," he said.
Most of those informally scavenging at waste centers make between Rs 200-300 a day by selling found items like plastic bottles, glass jars, and paper, to local kabadis.
Both Shrestha and Amatya said a system where they are employed directly by local bodies will never work, as IWWs need the incentive of selling rubbish to kabadis to work properly.
"I don´t think that would work, but the government does need to start recognizing IWWs more formally at least," said Shrestha, adding that they have an important role in garbage collection and recycling.
"The level of support from the municipalities [to improve their lot] has been good and we expect it to improve moving forward, but it´s being held back by bureaucracy," he said.
Related story
Waling Municipality: Making the best out of waste
