Is equity really what a waste picker wants?

Parag Gupta
Founder, Waste Ventures

To prove or disprove our hypotheses, we started with a polling of waste picker values, preferences, and major concerns in Indore where Basix works. Survey outcomes will then inform the process of structuring a legal entity that protects waste picker interests. Further we studied a broad spectrum of producer company models.

Interestingly, preliminary findings indicate that waste pickers are overwhelmingly interested in increased income, and only then in savings and loans. Opportunities for leadership, respect, or recognition are valued by a significantly smaller portion of the population. Having an equity stake was deemed much less important than achieving a direct increase in income. These findings are now informing our research on the best way to capture what the waste picker really prefer or value and provide them with the best possible way of achieving the improvements in their lives that they are looking for.

In a field like ours it’s important that we critically challenge our working assumptions, which are colored by our backgrounds and experiences (none of us who work for Waste Ventures have been brought up, living as a waste picker). Only then can we ensure that we do our very best to both change the status-quo and expand the imagined universe of possibilities for the community we work with, as well as design an intervention that targets what the community actually values (and not what we would value).