Waste pickers are workers, and our first demand is that we be recognized as such. Across the world our members organize into cooperatives, associations and unions to claim what other workers take for granted: legal recognition, decent working conditions, occupational health and safety, social protection, and the right to organize and bargain collectively. We carry these demands into the International Labour Organization, where waste pickers helped secure Recommendation 204 on the transition from the informal to the formal economy, and where trade unions invited us as experts to inform the landmark Policy guidelines for the promotion of decent work in recycling, approved by the ILO Governing Body in November 2025. We have taken part in the International Labour Conference for over a decade — most recently with our own badge as a formally invited observer. We also support our members' campaigns for national and municipal laws that recognize waste picking as legitimate work and integrate waste pickers into public waste management systems. We are not a problem to be managed. We are a workforce, and we organize as one.
