Suggested citation:
Cass Talbott, T. (2026). Assessing Deposit Return Systems as a model for waste picker inclusion in reuse and recycling. International Alliance of Waste Pickers and the North America Waste Pickers Alliance.

Waste pickers make Deposit Return Systems work, yet almost nowhere are they named, defined or consulted in the policies that govern them. This new paper is the first attempt to assess what DRS actually deliver for waste pickers, and whether they can serve as a model for the reuse systems now being designed around the world. It examines the design features that matter most to waste pickers: how deposits are set, whether refunds are tied to digital accounts, who is eligible for handling fees, and whether systems are run by governments or by producers and distributors. The findings are hard to ignore. Of 59 organisational affiliates of the IAWP, only three operate any formal aspect of a DRS, all through depots, all in the United States and Canada, and all of them struggling with frozen handling fees, rising rent, zoning barriers and encroaching automation.

The paper draws on cases from Ecuador, Uruguay, India, Germany, Sweden, Australia and North America, and closes with policy recommendations built over six years by NAWPA affiliates through regional meetings, workshops and live negotiations in Montreal, New York and Oregon, cross-validated with waste pickers in Ecuador, Uruguay and the Philippines. They set out what an inclusive system would require: low-barrier access to materials, deposits open to anyone who returns a container, decentralised depots run by cooperatives and social enterprises, mandated audits and transparency, and waste pickers named in policy rather than assumed into it. As reuse moves up the global agenda, these are the terms on which our sector will be included or displaced.