Formalization
for a Just Transition
Although deposit-return systems have the potential to form part of a just transition, they are not currently designed to create high quality, low-barrier work for waste pickers. The organizations in our alliance exist, in part, to develop these opportunities. This requires creativity, strong partnerships, and deep knowledge of our communities.
Any employment model for waste pickers must start from a thorough analysis of their motivations for doing this work. Once motivations are understood, attempts at formalizing or upgrading their work must meet waste pickers where they are, rather than imposing inappropriate costs and barriers.
About formalization
Waste pickers are self-employed workers who receive no social or legal protections through their work. They are informally employed.
In developing employment models for waste pickers that structure their work differently and pay them a steady wage, our organizations are “formalizing” waste picker work. Formalization of the informal economy is a hot topic. Unfortunately, it often seen by governments as a way to impose costs (such as taxation) and requirements. NAWPA believes, however, that top-down, cost-heavy formalization processes are unjust and also futile, as workers will opt out of them.
Formalization processes should start from workers’ existing ways of working, and seek to improve working conditions and earnings with workers’ full participation.
In NAWPA’s affiliated organizations, we have seen two critical enabling factors for the creation of employment models for waste pickers.
1. Support from local and state governments has been fundamental to the success of our work. This support did not come easy but after years of dedicated efforts on the part of each of our organizations, identifying key allies and opponents and understanding their interests, conducting outreach, educating and relationship building. Ultimately, government support first requires communicating the potential for mutual benefit. In all of our experiences, the onus has been on our organizations to provide education and exposure for governments to see the potential for mutual benefit over time. Another critical factor for supportive governments is a willingness to be flexible, to find creative ways to develop contracts and secure space, for example.
2. Designing and implementing successful models requires the leadership and everyday involvement of peers who have waste picking experience and, more generally, lived experience that allows them to respond to the community in an effective and supportive way. When waste pickers talk about what made them willing to try out a new form of work with one of our projects, what our community emphasizes is the trust that they felt because the work is lead and defined by peers. For a community that has long faced stigmatization, the ability to work in a non-judgmental environment with like-minded people can be a powerful motivator.
Challenges
In building strong, sustainable job creation models, NAWPA’s affiliates have faced numerous challenges, many of which relate to the shortcomings of labor law in enabling the creation of high-quality, low-barrier work with benefits. A lack of understanding about informality and why these types of jobs are needed exacerbates this.
The formalization of waste picking jobs is administratively burdensome. Many workers have garnishments, lack documentation, and are unable to work within the constraints of a regular schedule. Insurance and permitting requirements for our organizations to legally manage materials are also onerous and expensive. Securing a fiscal sponsor, as some NAWPA members have, can help, but this can also generate new challenges if the fiscal sponsorship does not allow for sufficient autonomy, experimentation and risk-taking and above all, foster peer-led growth.
Job creation models
Recycling Depot or Redemption Center Model
This model provides access to paid work through a recycling depot or a redemption center. This can be full-time, benefitted work or temporary work. This is the model used by Sure We Can in NYC, Ground Score in Portland, Oregon and Coop Les Valoristes in Montreal.
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​At Sure We Can (SWC) in New York, handling fees (3.5 cents USD per container) enable the creation of employment opportunities at the redemption center receiving, counting and processing cans and managing facilities. However, the low handling fee limits the number and quality of jobs created. (Many redemption centers across New York state have closed because it is no longer profitable to operate.) SWC offers full-time, salaried work to six people, three of whom are former waste pickers. In addition, temporary work opportunities are made available for waste pickers interested in providing support with counting and sorting cans and bottles.
​Coop Les Valoristes (CLV) in Montreal has also created jobs for waste pickers at its depot receiving, counting and processing cans. These jobs are partly funded through a mix of the 2.5 cent “solidarity fee,” donor funding, and the cooperatives’ other income streams (providing services at events – see below). CLV lobbied the province for a decade to be granted the 2.5 cent handling fee that retailers receive for doing the same work. CLV is able to provide employment for seven people, including five valoristes. In addition, temporary work opportunities are made available.​
Ground Score in Portland, Oregon, which operates The People’s Depot (TPD), receives no handling fee for containers. Instead, it is funded by a partnership with the distributor’s organization the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, which administers Oregon’s bottle bill. Ground Score’s success and advocacy led Oregon to recognize alternative access redemption centers in a 2025 bottle bill update. Now, TPD receives payments from retailers who benefit from having them nearby. The depot is fully staffed and managed by waste pickers. While Ground Score has been successful in creating low-barrier, well-paid jobs for workers who receive, count and process materials, and manage operations, limited funding means the depot can only operate for limited hours each day to maintain fair wages.
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Service Provision Models
Contracts with government and businesses can also create opportunities for full-time, benefitted work or temporary work. These models, which allow for different types of work, can directly provide work opportunities to waste pickers in greater numbers than the redemption center model.
Government contracts
Ground Score has a contract with the City of Portland for litter collection and tentside waste collection services to encampments through the GLITTER Program. Many waste pickers are looking for flexible, on-demand shift work, which GLITTER provides through independent contractor employment arrangements. Workers pick up shifts and are organized into crews, going out on predetermined routes.
To comply with state labor law, independent contractors must be selected using a random number generator, and cannot work in the same way as payroll workers. Though many workers prefer work as independent contractors because of the flexibility it provides, it presents risks and burdensome administration for Ground Score, highlighting the challenges with improving low barrier work in the US economy. For this reason, Ground Score is also working to find funding for its reuse and repair program, which facilitates training, studio and selling opportunities for members who create crafts from upcycled materials.
Business partnerships
In Vancouver, the Binners Project has contracts with local businesses and building owners for back-of-house sorting. Shifts are only available to members, but membership is granted to any waste picker who has attended at least three weekly meetings where issues are discussed and shifts assigned. Binners has contracts with businesses whose needs for service provision fluctuate, meaning that each week shifts can change.
Binners has two different types of supervisory roles that waste pickers occupy: Community coordinators take overall responsibility for running the sites (liaising with clients and paying out workers at the end of a shift for example) and staff managers lead shifts and provide direct oversight of volunteers. Supervisory roles are permanent, benefitted jobs, while volunteer work is paid through stipends.
Volunteers are assigned to teams, sorting bins to recycling standards, separating out materials by type, and extracting materials that are covered by a deposit refund. At the end of a shift, volunteers take away the refundable containers for redemption at local depots and keep the earnings.
Events contracts
Both Binners and Coop Les Valoristes started as social enterprises that provided waste sorting at events, especially during the summer. There are two components to these activities:
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Front-of-house waste education, through which waste pickers engage with the public about recycling, explaining how waste separation and redemption works and why it’s important.
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Back-of-house waste sorting, in which waste pickers separate out materials by type, and take away all deposit-marked containers for sale.
Since 2015, CLV has offered collection and sorting services for businesses and events. Depending on the contract, CLV keeps 100% of the deposit in support of its social and environmental mission or keeps 75% and returns 25% to the business/event. (Since deposits are not taxable in Québec, the service is offered with no taxes.) For both scenarios, CLV will provide a detailed report with the exact quantities of containers and deposit received. Businesses appreciate that transparency, and can use the information for their social responsibility or sustainable development reports.
Making the models work
Design options that work for waste pickers.
Based on our intimate, insider understanding of the communities we serve, we have designed models that meet people where they are in terms of capacity. This includes structuring shifts appropriately (offering shorter shifts), offering options to be paid in cash where possible, providing support (both emotional and administrative) in getting people access to identification and helping them set up to receive payments and register for health insurance. Having dedicated staff, especially former waste pickers, to walk alongside workers with digital divide challenges is critical.
Provide pathways for growth.
Our organizations offer multiple options for earning income depending on people’s interests and capacities. We have created pathways for waste pickers to take on additional responsibility and leadership over time, for people who are interested and able to do so.
Commit to innovation to ensure operations are effective and sustainable.
Our organizations engage in strategies for securing grants, experiment with models, develop new projects and initiatives that create new entry points, collect data and observe what works and what doesn’t to refine our models.
