Street Scavenging and Trash Picking

Street scavengers, also called trash pickers, are ambulatory garbage collectors who search for items of value in the waste streams of cities, towns, and villages. The majority of 21st-century scavengers make a living by selling recyclable paper and metals, but many also collect uneaten food and reusable products, such as appliances and clothing. Street scavengers have been part of the culture of consumption and waste for centuries, and they remain a vibrant part of the trash economies of Europe, the United States, India, China, Africa, and Latin America. The public exposure of trash pickers to health and economic risk makes them symbols of urban poverty, yet their work is a crucial part of the global trade in recyclable paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminum, tin, copper, bronze, and steel. From an environmental and economic development perspective, street scavenging can be beneficial. Scavengers clean dirty streets and, by recycling, conserve space [Page 873]in landfills and dumps. Unlike so-called dumpster divers, who pore through already-disposed of refuse, trash pickers generally work in unsorted garbage, in alleys, gutters, and ditches. Thus, they act as de facto sanitation workers as well as independent entrepreneurs. Doubts remain, however, about whether street scavenging should be legalized and, if legalized, how it should be regulated. Most trash pickers work informally, receiving no official recognition, licensing, or sanction for their activities. Scavengers often sell what they find to larger and wealthier junk brokers, who in turn sell to bulk buyers on a global scrap market.

It is difficult to pinpoint the historical origins of street scavenging. Archaeological and ethnographic data on metalworking from Africa and south Asia indicate that artisans developed economic relationships with people who collected iron and bronze scraps. With the dawn of the industrial age in Europe and the Americas, itinerant “rag pickers” and “junk men” became a more prominent presence in the cityscape.

Social scientists have begun to learn more about the world's two million scavengers and how their work contributes both to municipal waste management and to the market for recycled goods. By extracting valuable material from dumps, streets, and sewers, scavengers help to forestall the ecological degradation of cities, reducing the volume of solid waste in streets and other public places. This work is especially important in fast-growing metropolises of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where municipal solid waste collection has not developed as quickly as consumers’ appetites for disposable goods. As an activity in which poor and marginalized people can easily participate, garbage scavenging may also expand the benefits and reach of the recycling movement. From this perspective, then, trash picking can strengthen communities by giving their poorest members an economic stake in keeping them clean.