Mitigating from the Margins: Waste Picker Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Waste pickers recover more than 100 million tonnes of waste worldwide every year and play a significant role in addressing climate change. This Technical Brief presents a quantitative assessment of that contribution. Drawing on 20 case studies from cities across the world, it evaluates the Waste Picker Greenhouse Gas Calculator and estimates how waste pickers reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting waste from landfills, preventing open burning, and returning materials to the production cycle.
The findings show that waste pickers make a substantial, and often overlooked, contribution to climate mitigation, helping to avoid between 0.17 and 0.39 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions annually. The brief also demonstrates how the calculator can be used as a practical advocacy tool to support recognition, integration, and improved working conditions for waste pickers, while highlighting the urgent need for better data on the informal waste sector.
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