"Moving the Dial" on: Social Inclusion and Waste Pickers Rights

This webinar tells the story of the partnership development project 'Mapping Waste Governance', which seeks to identify, examine and document grassroots social innovations and challenges in waste governance under different geographic contexts. Through this research, waste becomes re-conceptualized as a resource and waste management as an inclusive approach, involving different waste actors (waste pickers, small scale waste entrepreneurs, Non-Governmental Organizations) and innovative approaches. Good waste governance can address poverty reduction, build community resilience, and increase environmental sustainability.

The Mapping Waste Governance project gives voice to the generally marginalized group of waste pickers , disseminating findings on everyday knowledge and on community-government partnerships and good waste governance. Long term collaborations and engagements between Canadian and Brazilian researchers, local municipal governments, and waste picker organizations, have paved the way for the creation of the University for and with Waste Pickers (UNICATA), expressing the need for access to continuous education by this generally marginalized population. Webinar presenters will speak about how this project has moved the dial on good waste governance practices as well as the rights and social inclusion of waste pickers.