The untold stories about waste are about invisible and vulnerable waste workers. China is no exception. The millions of Chinese migrant waste workers who recover 20% of the country’s urban waste are ignored. Chinese policymakers need to integrate migrant waste workers, their knowledge, and social justice issues into the country’s waste management future. Invisible and vulnerable workers are at the center of the many untold stories about waste. This is true in China as well. As Chinese policymakers accelerate zero-waste city pilots and laud successes in recycling, the contributions of migrant waste workers and their expertise also need to be sung. These workers boast nearly four decades of successful entrepreneurship in supporting the collection and sorting of China’s domestic waste and global recyclables exported to China. Mountains of municipal solid waste (MSW) have grown with the rising affluence in Chinese cities. This growing problem sparked the government to open a new front in its war on pollution. Along with banning the import of foreign waste and recyclables in 2018, the state mandated compulsory waste sorting among urban citizens in most of China’s large cities.  In the mid-2010s, Beijing had between 200,000 and 300,000 informal waste pickers and recyclers. Most of them are migrants. In our research from 2009 to 2019, we triangulated sources and estimated that 10 million rural migrants recovered some 20% of China’s municipal solid waste across the country. Despite this huge number, China’s waste policies have often overlooked the role of migrant-dominated waste recycling. One Beijing migrant waste worker lamented in an interview before the pandemic: “The city survives because of us waidiren (migrants). Once we leave, the city is dead.”  Since the pandemic, China’s waste workers have faced even greater hardships and policy neglect. As we have documented the great contribution and exclusion of China’s migrant recycling workers, we conclude that Chinese policymakers must integrate them—as well as their knowledge and the social justice issues their work raises—into the country’s waste management future. 

A Pre-Pandemic Day in the Life  

In our years of fieldwork in Beijing, our team has interviewed and accompanied migrant waste workers through their long days to understand their tasks and contributions. We discovered three main types of migrant waste worker professions:  

• “Landed” yard waste buyers or recyclers who buy waste directly from individual waste reclaimers to sort and sell recyclable wastes to trade centers or manufacturers.
•  Itinerant neighborhood waste reclaimers who sort recyclables in urban neighborhood trash/recycling stations and take their collected recyclables to sell to the yard buyers.
• Other itinerant waste reclaimers who collect from public trash bins, streets, and households and sell to yard buyers. 

“Landed” yard waste buyers are usually couples who run family businesses specializing in one specific kind of waste recycling. They run on a tight schedule in an almost 24-hour shift (See Infographic). In the middle of the hierarchy is an army of itinerant waste workers working in urban neighborhood recycling stations. They must pay “management fees” to public or private waste companies to be endorsed recyclers.  A former neighborhood waste reclaimer recounted that he started each day at 5:00 a.m. and often worked until 2:00 a.m., sorting waste in a neighborhood 10 kilometers away from his home. He explained to us: “I borrowed money to buy a second-hand van because it was too costly to rent the company vehicle. I spent a lot of time carefully sorting wastes because buyers are highly specialized in different types of recyclable materials.” He was injured in a car accident while working and left with a long-term disability without insurance.  At the bottom are other itinerant waste reclaimers, including waste pickers and “scavengers,” who collect waste from the streets. They work even longer hours and face more hazardous situations. Many depend on motorized tricycles for transportation between their homes, inner-city streets, recycling yards, and trade markets. Beijing officials announced there will be strict licensing of motorized tricycles starting in 2024. This will raise costs for workers who engage in this hazardous work. 

Beyond the COVID-19 Waste Burden 

The pandemic was rough on Chinese migrant waste workers. During zero-COVID lockdowns, some cities closed district recycling markets. Neighborhoods banned waste workers from entering. These workers also were discouraged from returning home. These stringent bans on movement further impoverished and stressed migrants who were already subject to long-term discrimination. Before the pandemic, migrants already faced enormous challenges due to discrimination, hazardous working conditions, and frequent demolitions of recycling yards by local governments. While some second-generation migrants ventured into “more modern” waste jobs by using technologies such as cell phone apps to find markets and a small number were able to work inside neighborhoods, many others lost work—or had to constantly move further from the city to find space for living and recycling. Additionally, as part of the central government’s War on Waste, cities like Shanghai and Beijing mandated household garbage sorting in 2020, which directly impacted the incomes of waste pickers, or “scavengers.” Beijing’s MSW already doubled between 2007 and 2019 and surged even more during the pandemic. Despite mounting waste pressures and the government’s efforts to formalize the recycling sector, the recycling labor force in Beijing was still dominated by the “informal army” (over 90%) in 2021. Nevertheless, migrant waste workers still face frequent scrutiny and strict regulations. 

China and the Global Plastic Treaty: What is the Role of Waste Workers?

As China participates in the ongoing negotiations for the UN global plastic treaty, its government should acknowledge and support more protections for informal waste workers. Delegations from numerous Latin American countries have proposed waste pickers be treated as one of the key stakeholders in the treaty, because they have played a vital role in addressing many collection and recycling challenges of plastic waste.  The representatives of waste pickers participating in the negotiations hope their role in plastic recycling can be treated with the same status that formal waste management contractors hold. They want to receive subsidies and other support to help improve recycling in their countries.   Most migrant waste workers we met during our research were proud of the positive impact their waste recycling brought to local communities and the city. However, they did share stories of government neglect and discrimination from urbanites and officials alike. They also lamented how despite their hard work the cities were squeezing them out.  Both the global treaty and future national legislation in China must recognize the important role played by migrant waste workers in recycling. Despite recent efforts to integrate and reduce single-use plastics, measures are needed to guarantee waste worker rights and forge an inclusive path toward waste reduction.