Nepal's informal waste management sector plays an indispensable and multifaceted role in both the nation's economy and its waste management practices. This sector has been operating for more than 50 years, with generations relying on it for their livelihood.
Contributions to Nepal's Economy:
- Job Creation and Livelihoods: The informal sector has provided job opportunities and economic activities to numerous individuals, significantly aiding many families in their survival. It offers employment to low-educated or unskilled labor among the population. Many families and lives are directly dependent on this sector, which also supports the nation's economic development. While there is a notable dominance in this sector from people from India and the Terai region of Nepal, many waste pickers are also of Nepali origin. Many individuals, particularly migrants, turn to informal waste picking as a survival activity due to their low income and limited qualifications.
- Significant Economic Value: Despite often working in precarious conditions, informal waste workers contribute substantially to the economy. For instance, in Kathmandu Metropolitan City alone, informal waste buyers and pickers manage approximately 10% of the total municipal solid waste, which is estimated to save the national economy 371 million Nepali Rupees every year. In the broader Kathmandu Valley, informal waste workers (collectors and itinerant buyers) recovered and traded an estimated USD 18 million of recyclables in 2017. Waste picking can also be a career inheritance, with some individuals being exposed to it from an early age through their families.
- Income Generation: The informal sector provides income for urban poor. Daily earnings are often the only source of income for itinerant waste buyers. While scrap dealers can find it lucrative, waste pickers operate at the lowest level of the recycling chain, working long hours for minimum rates. Some affiliated waste pickers receive monthly wages ranging from NPR 12,000 to NPR 28,000, and some organizations like Nepsemyak, Next Era Energy, and Dhankuta Municipality provide Social Security Funds (SSF) and health benefits. Social enterprises like Doko Recycler also help uplift waste pickers by educating them about bank accounts and providing food and insurance benefits.
Contributions to Waste Management Practices:
- Recycling and Resource Recovery: The informal sector is the primary agent that collects or helps to recover high recyclable materials from households. They are crucial in diverting a large amount of waste from being disposed of in landfills, thus helping to create a circular economy for the items they collect. Sources emphasize that if the informal sector ceased operations, most recyclable items would likely end up in landfills due to the absence of other cost-effective or proper channels for processing such vast quantities of waste. They play the main role in solid waste recycling in low-income countries. For example, in Kathmandu, a 2019 study found that waste pickers recovered more than 10 tons of plastic waste per day, significantly reducing the city's pollution and landfill issues. They also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting waste from landfills.
- Behavioral Change: Members of the informal sector have served as agents who have changed people's behavior in waste management, encouraging waste segregation at least for some fractions or items.
- Filling Gaps in Formal Systems: Informal actors are essential where formal waste services are inadequate or non-existent. They collect, sort, and recover waste outside of legal and institutional frameworks. Their activities complement the formal system, creating a mixture of formal and informal practices. They provide raw materials to formal recycling industries in Nepal and India.
- Operational Efficiency: The manual sorting of recyclables by informal waste workers has been found to be highly efficient, especially in the absence of source segregation and sorting equipment. These efforts contribute to increasing the lifespan of landfills and providing valuable materials for recycling.
Despite these significant contributions, the informal sector's roles and contributions are often unrecognized by governments and communities, and they frequently face neglect, misbehavior, and humiliation. While formal waste management acts and regulations exist, they often do not acknowledge or integrate the informal recycling sector.
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