How One Social Impact Organization Supports Bengaluru’s Waste Pickers

Hasiru Dala is a non-profit organization that works to support the livelihood of waste pickers in Bengaluru. The term “waste picker” here refers to a person who informally collects waste, not someone employed by a state or local municipality, making them self-employed entrepreneurs. Their work to recycle plastics and other material means less emissions from manufacturing and less methane release into the atmosphere from over crowded dump sites.

Waste pickers are a vital part of the infrastructure of Bengaluru yet they are a vulnerable population. They do not earn a set monthly income, but rather sell recyclables in a largely unregulated market. They are also vulnerable because as cities like Bengaluru grow, government organizations make new decisions regarding the management of waste, potentially disenfranchising the people who have traditionally collected the waste. As an organization, Hasiru Dala conceptualizes itself as a bridge between waste pickers and Bengaluru city waste management. In this role they have worked to ensure that all dry waste collection and processing remains the responsibility of waste pickers. The expertise of the waste pickers is leveraged to work on Bengaluru’s carbon footprint, and the waste pickers gain access to advanced job skills such as collecting waste on designated routes, driving trucks, and working in and managing sorting centres.

Four years ago they started an initiative called Hasiru Mane with the purpose of helping waste pickers with housing security. Akbar Allahbakash director and program design initiative head says that Hasiru Mane, “undertakes functions under five main themes: access to public housing, incremental placemaking in informal settlements, climate change adaptation, designing Dry Waste Collection Centres (DWCC), and action-based research.” He explains that as an initiative, Hasiru Mane helps waste picker communities connect with local government organizations that will increase their housing security. In one such community, it has helped the waste picker community successfully negotiate with the Karnataka Slum Development Board to provide them with land and permanent housing. Yet while the community members waited for construction to begin, they had nowhere to live. Hasiru Mane worked with this community to develop temporary housing options that could be made from a mix of new, and recycled materials. The aim was to keep costs down and reduce construction waste while providing secure and comfortable housing.

The Hasiru Mane team is also “developing exploratory tools which will help the community members map their housing aspirations and allow them to become co-creators in designing the public spaces in their communities,” says Allahbakash. These initiatives ideally build the waste pickers’ sense of autonomy and connection to their communities while providing a model of environmental responsibility to the rest of the city.

Hasiru Dala has worked with waste pickers to increase their livelihood security for over ten years. One particular initiative that works in both the areas of waste management and skill advancement is the creation of a plywood alternative made by pressing and heating multi-layer plastic. Multilayer plastic is a material hard to recycle because it is a mix of plastic and other types of material; however, Hasiru Dala has developed a way to turn this plastic into boards that can be used to make desks, benches, and even to construct houses. This work provides building material that needs only moderate heat to produce and reduces the CO2 emissions as multi-layer plastic is often incinerated.

Hasiru Dala’s initiatives go beyond just looking out for the waste pickers’ job security and capacity building.

Temporary housing made from different materials

In the communities where waste pickers secured public housing through the state, the Initiative has started looking into incremental “placemaking” in the informal settlements. Place-making is an urban design concept in which communities are built around the needs and wants of their members. Allahbakash says that “the intention of this concept is to address public health, recreational spaces, social infrastructures, inclusivity, climate change and safety.”

In the temporary housing communities, Hasiru Mane hopes to layer in rainwater collection to help with the communities’ water needs; terrace gardens to help with nutrition and heat stress; and waste management systems that allow the waste pickers to leverage their expertise to keep their communities clean and sanitary.