Middlemen, often referred to as scrap dealers or scrap buyers, are intermediaries in the informal waste supply chain. They play a crucial role in the economic flow of recyclables from informal waste workers to larger industries.
Their role typically involves:
- Purchasing
collected materials: They buy sorted recyclable materials (e.g.,
plastics, paper, glass, metals) directly from individual waste pickers and
scavengers at negotiated prices.
- Accumulation
and storage: Middlemen accumulate significant quantities of
recyclables from multiple waste pickers and store them at their premises.
- Processing
and preparation: They may carry out further processing, such as
cleaning, baling, crushing, or more refined sorting, to meet the quality
and volume demands of industrial buyers.
- Transportation
and trade: Once sufficient volume is accumulated, they organize the
transportation of these materials to recycling companies or factories,
sometimes even facilitating export to other countries, like India.
Exploitative aspect: Middlemen often operate in monopsonistic
markets, where they are the primary or sole buyers of recyclables from
waste pickers, especially in isolated areas like dumpsites. This position of
power allows them to exploit IWWs by paying very low prices for recyclables,
sometimes as little as 5% of the price the industry ultimately pays. This
significantly limits the income and economic stability of waste pickers. The
formation of waste picker cooperatives is often aimed at circumventing these
middlemen to allow workers to receive higher, fairer prices for their
materials.
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