Decentralise waste management to ensure women’s participation: Report

The report, titled “Santulan: Path to Equality for Women Wastepickers in India”, was released jointly by the waste management NGO Chintan along with The Incubation Network

Decentralised waste management is the key to ensuring women’s participation in waste management, with 80% of Delhi’s women waste workers taking up to 30 minutes to reach their workplace, while 75% of the women surveyed choose to travel on foot to their workplace as compared to 42% percent of male waste workers, findings of a new report released on Tuesday, showed.

80% of Delhi’s women waste workers taking up to 30 minutes to reach their workplace, says report. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)

The report, titled “Santulan: Path to Equality for Women Wastepickers in India”, was released jointly by the waste management NGO Chintan along with The Incubation Network, which surveyed and tracked 24 participants in total over a period of 8 months between April to November 2022.

Four wastepickers (2 males, 2 females) who worked in a government acquired micro-material recovery facilities (MRF) as ‘main participants’, while a control group of 20 wastepickers were also identified in the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s south Delhi jurisdiction, consisting of 10 men and 10 women in total.

“What made these wastepickers different from the MRF participants was that they were not operating MRFs officially allocated by the municipalities,” the study said, stating the survey and analysis of these wastepickers found that while none of the men reported taking breaks from work to carry out caregiving activities at home, 67% of the women took breaks from work for meeting their children at school, cooking food or other such family exigencies.

“Thus, workplaces that are closer to the women’s homes are key to their participation,” the study states.

The study further found that women working in MRFs were earning more than women not working in such facilities, demanding for more such units to be made operational across Delhi. While the women working in the MRF had a household income of over ₹25,000 per month, 60% of the women in the control group, or working outside, had a household income below ₹15,000, the study said.

“None of the control group women have a household income above ₹20,000. It was also found that a hundred percent of the MRF women earn above INR 2,000 per week for plastics, whereas 80% of the control group women earn below ₹2,000 per week. Thus, a positive correlation is seen between having space (such as micro-MRF or a dry waste collection centre) and improved incomes,” it added.

Shruti Sinha from Chintan, one of the lead researchers of the study, says the study has established a link between women waste workers earning better in a defined space and having access to high-value plastic as compared to those who did not have a dedicated space to work. “This makes material recovery facilities important. Women are also better savers, saving in banks, and investing in their children’s education. If more women wastepickers are integrated into extended producer responsibility (EPR) regimes and with urban local bodies, they can actually help fight poverty and create a better future for their children.” she adds.