Waste pickers workers make a living collecting, sorting, recycling, and selling materials that others throw away. Their work contributes to local economies, public health and environmental sustainability. The vast majority of waste pickers in India are women, and Dalits, who have been invisible to society, faced discrimination, and worked without recognition for years.
Kashtakari Panchayat was formed to support Pune's waste pickers and their collectives. It emerged and evolved to address the financial, technical, administrative and legal needs of waste pickers' collectives, and functions as a bridge facilitating dialogue and linkages between them, strengthening both the work of individual waste pickers and their collectives.
Today, we work with over 8,000 waste pickers and their families and support waste picker collectives. We have several social welfare programs including a helpdesk service for waste pickers, education and training, emergency relief support and more. Our livelihoods programs are designed to strengthen waste picker livelihoods within and beyond waste management by empowering waste pickers to occupy higher echelons within the recycling space, operate sustainable enterprises that promote reuse and recycling, train waste pickers to build their capacities, and increase the visibility of waste pickers as frontline environmental workers. In tandem with this, we also undertake research and policy advisory work towrds preserving and stregntheing the lives and livelihoods of waste pickers.