Go Green’s approach to social and economic inclusion of informal waste pickers

Go Green’s approach to social and economic inclusion of informal waste pickers

Up to 90% of the recycled paper, plastic and metal is collected by the informal waste pickers in North Macedonia. The entire waste management system relies on these invisible worker bees. When we say invisible, it is actually seen from the eyes of the system. There is no formal trace of a transaction and everything goes in cash. But for the regular citizen, everyone can witness thousands of waste pickers, mostly from the Roma community, that are putting their hands and heads in the containers every day, looking for plastic bottles or other valuable resources. This has been their professional occupation for decades.

Go Green has started working on the issue of green jobs in 2017. It started with the green jobs potential in the energy sector and the lack of workers in the construction sector (which is also a huge social and economic challenge), but it ended up in exploring and finding solutions for integration of the thousands of waste pickers – which actually meant green jobs in the waste sector.

To approach this challenge, we started looking at the supportive measures at the Agency for
employment. In the Operational Plan for Active Measures for Employment there are occupations that
are on demand by the employers but there is a lack of interest of unemployed people that can fill these recognized job profiles. And the Agency for employment is financially supporting trainings to upgrade skills and competencies for the unemployed people and integrate them into the labor market in the recognized profession that is lacking. Okay, we said, lets organize a process for training and integrating of waste pickers and with this they will be recognized as professional workers.

But who is going to employ them? And how are they going to get paid? Where will the income come from?

The answer on the first question was that we needed to create recognized occupation/profession so
that the training providers can issue a State recognized certificate for that job profile. Second, they get paid from the plastic bottles they collect in the containers. Who is filling these containers with plastic bottles? The Citizens. So, the answer to the second question was that we need to organize a system for primary selection in households, buildings and companies and allocate the waste pickers to pick them up in a “door to door” system. The employer would be a social enterprise that would be created for this exact purpose.

In 2018, Go Green together with experts in the waste management sector, developed a new occupation at the Centre for Vocational Education and Training. The new occupation’s name was “Waste picker and handler” aiming at integrating, formalizing and recognizing the waste pickers as professional workers. In 2019, Go Green developed an educational program for “Secondary resources pickers” and was certified as a training provider for this program by the Ministry of Education and Science and Centre for Adult Education. It was also budgeted a financial support in the Operational plan for active measures for employment trainings for green jobs in the waste sector i.e. for social and economic inclusion of the waste pickers. In the same time, Go Green started piloting primary waste selection system in buildings and households (400 houses) in order to develop a business plan for the social enterprise. So far, the model is working, and slowly trust is being built in the process. By the waste pickers and by the citizens.

Link to a video that shows our system

The project “Collaborative economy without barriers” is supporting these processes and the activities
that the project provides are being used to involve also vulnerable groups from the Roma community.

Link to a video of the Roma community's living situation

With the activities is shown that green economy and education can work for the Roma community and they are a meaningful part of our society. Even few waste pickers have shown interest in attending study visits in the partner countries and expand their worldviews.

The process that was described above is an opportunity for thousands of vulnerable adults and young

people to be educated and integrated in the society and receive the social security support. 

And again, built trust in the system and the opportunities that it offers. Green economy and social inclusion must go hand in hand and the system must serve the ones that have been marginalized the most. The project “Collaborative economy without barriers” reminds us of that purpose and it supports it with the activities that it offers.

- Go Green <3