by David Hencke

Some of the poorest people on the planet – the waste pickers from India and Latin America – are planning to lobby world leaders at the Copenhagen summit on climate change next month.

Workers who scratch a living from recycling waste in many of the urban cities and shanty towns in developing countries want recognition and support for their jobs built into an international initiative to curb global warming.

Largely ostracised by the public, they already contribute to a reduction in global warming by scavenging to reuse materials or collecting discarded materials from people’s homes. They argue that it would be better for developing countries to develop municipal recycling services which could create proper jobs to promote recycling.

The campaign has grown because not only have waste pickers seen their living standards cut back by the global recession, but they could now lose their jobs because of governments backing new incineration projects as a quick solution to end landfill sites.

With the backing of the International Trade Union Federation, groups from Pune in India and Colombia have already been able to hold meetings at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bonn earlier this year. Here they teamed up with a campaigning organisation, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, to make a case for recycling versus burning or burying waste.

Now they are planning to put on the agenda the role thar reuse of metals, plastics and wood can play in protecting the environment –- cutting down deforestation, oil drilling and mining.

The campaign is particularly directed at multinational companies who see the global warming initiative as a springboard for building more incinerators in developing countries – such as is happening in the United Kingdom as the country cuts back on landfill.

One of the key organisers will be Lakshmi Narayan, the general secretary of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchaya, a trade union representing  many of the 6,500 waste pickers based in Pune, India. The organisation speaks for the poorest people in the area and has a mission to upgrade the livelihoods of waste pickers and improve their conditions of work through their integration into municipal solid waste collection, recovery and processing.

Other major players are in Colombia, Brazil and Peru.

The whole initiative is being promoted by global co-ordinator Lucia Fernandez, from France, who is working through the Inclusive Cities project, which backs local organisations set up by the waste pickers themselves to campaign for better conditions.

In a statement to be put to world leaders, they are calling for national governments to “invest in resource delivery programmes that ensure decent livelihoods for all workers and traders in the recycling economy”.