Holding strong views on waste segregation and urban waste management, Manoura Begum - a Delhi-based ragpicker - got the opportunity to deliver a talk at a conference in Bangkok recently. The conference was on ‘Rights and Protection of Workers in Informal Economy and the ILO Process’ in Bangkok, Thailand. Manoura is the first in her entire family to board an airplane.

She earns her living on the leftovers and considers it a treasure. She joined Safai Sena - a group of waste-pickers registered with Chintan, an environment NGO, which goes door to door to collect waste - in 2000. Today, she goes to 150 houses with her cart and even counsels residents on how to segregate wet and dry waste, so that the latter can be recycled or reused. According to Manoura, if the wet waste soils the paper, it becomes useless and they end up losing value.

She also pointed out that most of the ragpickers suffer from tuberculosis and have bouts of vomiting as well as headaches. She hopes that they will become a part of the formal waste-picking sector soon after the Delhi waste management policy is drafted. She is against privatisation of waste collection and disposal because that will eat up millions of livelihoods like hers.

Domestic workers, street vendors and other informal workers also participated at the conference.