Photo: Langelle/GJEP
One of the millions of people who globally make a living from waste picking during a demonstration in Durban, South Africa
On 5 December 2011, during the UN climate conference in Durban South Africa, the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers held a “permitted” protest inside the UN compound. The protest was almost stopped by UN security, who told organizers they needed to have their signs and banners approved by the UN before they could be displayed. The waste pickers held their protest anyway, which included emptying trash from the UN conference center on the ground then demonstrating how they sort and recycle it.
Millions of people worldwide make a living from waste picking. They collect, sort and process recyclables, reducing the amount of waste that is sent to landfills and saving valuable natural resources. Today, an increasing number of waste pickers are processing organic waste, diverting it from landfills and reducing methane gas pollution. Waste pickers could further reduce greenhouse gas emissions given proper support.
About the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers:
The Global Alliance of Waste Pickers brings together waste picker organizations from Africa, Asia and Latin America. To learn more about waste pickers’ experiences and to support fair and just solutions to climate change, visit their blog http://www.globalrec.org/
Also please visit GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) http://www.no-burn.org/
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Orin Langelle is currently working on a book of four decades of his concerned photography. From mid-June to mid-July Langelle worked on the book as an artist in residence at the Blue Mountain Center in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.
Also check out the GJEP Photo Gallery, past Photos of the Month posted on GJEP’s website, or Langelle’s photo essays posted on GJEP’s Climate Connections blog.
Global Justice Ecology Project explores and exposes the intertwined root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination with the aim of building bridges between social justice, environmental justice and ecological justice groups to strengthen their collective efforts. Within this framework, our programs focus on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, protection of native forests and climate justice. We use the issue of climate change to demonstrate these interconnections. Global Justice Ecology Project is the North American Focal Point of the Global Forest Coalition.
