Introduction
Changing concepts of garbage geographies are shifting understanding of waste from merely being material requiring collection, handling and, ultimately, disposal to now embracing the resource management paradigm (Moore 2012; Velis et al. 2012; Wilson and Velis 2014). Under this new framing, waste is seen as an important resource whose exploitation provides significant socioeconomic benefits. In cities of the developing world, municipal solid wastes are often regarded as natural resources which are harvested by the poor and disadvantaged segments of the urban population for a livelihood. It is known that millions of less privileged urban residents worldwide make a living from unregulated collection, recycling, valorisation and disposal of solid wastes (Dias 2012; Fahmi and Sutton 2006; Fahmi and Sutton 2010; Medina 2007). Such unregistered activities constitute segments of the so-called informal economy in developing country cities (Castells and Portes 1989).
While the economy is known to be active in solid waste management (SWM), taking advantage of deficits in formal provision of this service to make a living in cities in many countries, dumpsite scavenging forms one such sub sector within the informal sphere (Rankokwane and Gwebu 2006). Scavenging is such a significant livelihood activity that about 15 million people or 1% of the developing world's urban population has been estimated to be involved in it (Medina 2007). SWM and recycling involving informal actors such as scavengers often achieve spectacular results for the economy, environment and society in many countries (Scheinberg, Wilson, and Rodic 2010).
Of the triad above, this research considers it germane to accentuate the social relevance of the informal waste economy in relation to the position of informal waste workers within the political economy of Nigerian cities where hostile urban governance processes and policies are known to impinge on their activities. In this regard, Oguntoyinbo (2012) contends that waste pickers in Nigeria have not been integrated into SWM policy – a major limitation being lack of social acceptance of the activity. Recent research on waste picking in Nigeria has, however, focused on aspects of social engagement with informal waste workers such as socio-political organisation and power relations (Adama 2012), vulnerability of livelihood (Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012) and social participation of the recyclers in the urban governance process (Nzeadibe and Anyadike 2012). Despite this, a gap still exists in relation to social sustainability, which, according to Stilwell (2011, 108), implies the reproduction of acceptable social structures and institutions, producing social cohesion, but which has been clearly missing in the discourses and debates on the characteristics and significance of informal garbage geographies in Nigeria (Nzeadibe 2013).
This paper queries the continued neglect of the social dimension of the sustainability debate in discussions on IWM in Nigeria. This is anchored on the premise that IWM is about people, their activities and how they live their lives, and that waste pickers are active players in the urban economic space and a distinct and often heterogeneous social group (Nzeadibe and Anyadike 2012). In this context, this paper argues that a nuanced understanding of the underlying political economy of waste picking is a sine qua non in the quest for its social sustainability. Yet, the subject of waste picking has been subject to little political economy analysis (Obeng-Odoom 2013, 2014). Accordingly, this study attempts to integrate ‘politics’ and ‘economics’ into research on a neglected form of SWM which, paradoxically, is prevalent in developing country cities as a livelihood (Nzeadibe 2013).
Perhaps it is instructive that previous research on African environment and development has questioned whether and to what extent livelihood thinking can be a useful tool in studying the political economy of the production of nature (Cline-Cole and O'Keefe 2006, 387). Arguably, the suggestion that there might be room for fruitful interaction between political economy and livelihood studies, notably in exploring the uneven production of society and nature in the pursuit of economic and environmental goals within the current context of globalisation (Ifeka and Abua 2005), deserves critical inquisition. The present paper explores that proposition by deploying an amalgam of the sustainable livelihoods and political economy frameworks to explicate social conditions of labour in the Nigerian informal waste economy in relation to state/institutional policies. Political economy structurally defines the research while the sustainable livelihoods framework relates to functional aspects of waste-picking activity in this study.
Three key questions are posed to shed light on the social sustainability challenges of the sub culture of waste picking, an obviously under reported, misunderstood and perhaps misrepresented theme in the political economy and environment of Nigerian cities:
What are the political economy implications of waste picking in urban Nigeria?
Is social sustainability compatible with informal waste management (IWM)?
Can dumpsite scavenging in urban Nigeria be socially sustainable?
The remaining sections will shed more light on the above questions.
Political economy of waste picking: neoliberalism and green economy in urban Africa
This conceptual articulation is an attempt to use environmental issues to bear witness to Africa's complicated political struggle, while not ignoring the cultural and other forms underpinning that struggle (Cline-Cole and O'Keefe 2006, 377). We begin by noting that since the mid 1980s, African countries have been under the grip of neoliberal economic policies premised on the conditionality of the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Adedeji, Teriba, and Bugembe 1991). Perhaps most significant of all World Bank/IMF policy recommendations is the insistence on ‘rolling back the state'. Neoliberal policies of privatisation, deregulation and trade liberalisation are commonly portrayed as pro-market policies that aim to ‘roll back the state’ (Stilwell 2014, 43). Under the neoliberal framing, the state was perceived as a behemoth standing in the way of self-regulating market forces and therefore, as a matter of policy, it needed to be incapacitated. In adopting the roll-back policies, the African state also rolled itself away from the provision of the most basic of its functions, namely the provision of social welfare. Failure of the state and its agencies to guarantee social welfare has transformed the social sector from being a public good provided by the government, to a private service which individuals and groups have to provide themselves through various means. Neoliberalism, which comes with a deregulated economy, particularly in the context of globalisation, has led to greater exclusion and inequity in the provision of public welfare because of inequality of the market, gross reduction in public spending in the social sector and privatisation of welfare services (Mbah 2014).
In the light of the above, three related theoretical propositions are considered in this paper using the case of Nigeria. First, peripheral capitalist accumulation, which is state driven, has failed to deliver development and public welfare such as social security. State-driven peripheral capitalist accumulation is based on an international division of labour in which the periphery exports primary commodities. The vagaries of the international market and pricing system for these commodities mean that revenues from them are subject to sudden collapse, which undermines the entire framework of state-led accumulation and social welfare (Mbah 2014). Consequently, the pursuit of power (politics), the pursuit of wealth (economics) and lack of policy on solid waste in Nigeria exist in a mutually reinforcing network of relationships and linkages. Before the introduction of neoliberalism, the state was the guarantor and provider of socio-economic existence in Nigeria. The state was then expected to play a central role in the economy as investors, regulators, subsidisers, employers and providers of basic social services such as education, health and social security. The peripheral capitalist state has itself become a means of production for those who control it (Ekekwe 1986; Iyayi 2005).
Second, in response to this failure and collapse of public welfare, successive Nigerian governments in conjunction with international financial institutions and creditors have been implementing neoliberal economic policies as an alternative to state-led accumulation. This neoliberal economic framework is market and private sector driven. The assumption is that the problem with countries like Nigeria is that the state is very prominent in the economy. Consequently, proponents of such views advocate the implementation of policies such as privatisation, which offers an alternative to state accumulation. As such, there tends to be a decisive swing in development strategy and focus of public policy-making and implementation away from public sector initiatives and social welfare to private ownership and market-based allocation of resources. This has drastically reduced the commitment of resources to social security and job creation.
Third, this market-led alternative has also failed to deliver development and public welfare. This has happened not only because the market is still underdeveloped in Nigeria, but also because this framework inherently leads to many people falling out of the social safety net previously provided by the state (Mbah 2014). Consequent upon the failure of both state-led and market-led development strategies, there is a capacity gap within the state sector in public policy-making and implementation which the informal economy attempts to fill. This is in response to the adoption and progressive implementation of neoliberal economic policies which lead to increasing participation of the private sector in the Nigerian economy. The neoliberal economic framework advocates the contraction of state intervention in public policy-making and implementation. The neoliberal economic framework thus emphasises privatisation, deregulation, entrepreneurialism, structural adjustment programmes and the free market as alternatives to the failure of a peripheral capitalist state like Nigeria. These have become important ingredients in the swing towards the market, which has characterised economic reform in Nigeria in the recent past. Hence, the tremendous roles vacated by the state consequent on economic reforms are being filled by informal operators pursuing a livelihood.
Transposing this analysis into SWM and the unregulated recovery of materials from municipal refuse, recent research has noted the rise in waste picking in urban Africa, and some studies have argued that global structures and processes of change are to be held responsible for such a rise (Medina 2007). This is particularly so with the apparent intensification of waste picking during the early twenty-first century occasioned by uncritical introduction of neoliberal policies often being promoted as a panacea for the problems of poverty and inefficiency in urban services provisioning (Bjerkli 2013a; Miraftab 2004). Accordingly:
Neoliberalism was established as the dominant political and ideological approach to development and improvements to urban services. The main aim of the neoliberal ideology was to privatize public services, according to the belief at the time that the private sector and the free market were the most cost-efficient ways to provide urban services. The implementation of neoliberal policies and reforms led to significant reorganizations of the state institutions and their responsibility, where the emphasis was on the market and the retreat of the national state in line with neoliberal ideas. (Bjerkli 2013b, 3)
The preceding author further argues that neoliberal policies and structural adjustment programmes led to the involvement of private actors in the provision of urban services such as SWM in African cities (Adama 2012; Bjerkli 2013b, 3), hence the rise in informal private sector involvement in SWM in urban Africa. These trends have led to new opportunities for some groups, but increased vulnerability for many in Africa (Alexander and Reno 2012; Lindell 2010; Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012).
On the impact of global political economy on the internationalisation of trade in waste materials, Nzeadibe and Adama (2013) aver that in response to the growing demand for recyclables across the globe, the informal waste economy has grown into a global market with complex international networks. While some local industries rely on the supplies of secondary raw materials from the informal economy, the economy has also established linkages in transborder trade with neighbouring and distant countries. The present paper posits that a dynamic informal economy of waste is in existence among countries of the West and Central African sub regions (Asong 2010; Mbeng 2013; Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Adama forthcoming; Oteng-Ababio forthcoming) as well as with markets in India, China and Europe (Alexander and Reno 2012; Nzeadibe and Adama 2013). With the glaring absence of formal recycling of municipal waste in African cities, the informal sector has continued to play the role of ‘critical but unacknowledged gap filler’ in the waste recycling system (Nzeadibe and Adama 2013, 1), a role which progressively impacts on the health and functioning of African cities.
In the light of the above, the present research argues that IWM also has implications beyond the city scale to regional and global economies, as shown in the global exchange of recovered materials within the continent of Africa and beyond. In addition, IWM also has implications for achieving the objectives of the Global Campaign on Urban Governance, whose vision is to realise ‘the inclusive city', that is, a place where everyone, regardless of wealth, gender, age, race or religion, is enabled to participate productively and positively in the opportunities cities have to offer (UN-HABITAT 2002).
Although waste picking had previously been subject to theoretical analysis in Colombia (Birkbeck 1978, 1979), Indonesia (Sicular 1991, 1992) and, more recently, in a cross-cultural multi-country study (Medina 2007), current thinking on the political economy of waste picking in Africa has approached the subject from the viewpoint of green neoliberalism, which espouses limited or non- interference from the state in the markets in what has been characterised as ‘marketising the environment to save it' (Obeng-Odoom 2013, 2014; Stilwell 2011). Related research elsewhere has also shown how globalisation acts as a catalyst for broader structural changes in the informal economy of waste with the result that the marketisation of the waste sector has had important knock-on effects in terms of the ability of waste pickers to organise and exert their agency as workers, thus challenging the construction of waste picking as an ‘invisible’ form of work that constitutes an extension of Dalit women's normal/natural household responsibilities (Kilby 2013, 211). Thus, neoliberalism has gained a new momentum in the ‘green’ or environmental sector with a consequent rise in green values in African cities (Fredericks 2012; Obeng-Odoom 2014, 129). Arguably, the IWM sector saves cities huge sums of money and landfill space, drives entrepreneurship, generates employment and incomes, mitigates the problem of climate change, creates a ‘green economy’ and conserves non-renewable resources (Fergutz, Dias, and Mitlin 2011; Thieme 2010). Thus, IWM, this paper contends, forms a significant component of the ‘new green economy’ and its inclusion for the promotion of green jobs and sustainable urban development in African cities has strongly been canvassed (ILO 2013; Nzeadibe and Anyadike 2012; Obeng-Odoom 2014).
In concluding the theoretical underpinnings of this research, we note that waste picking is a process of production, consumption and potential accumulation – under inclusive policy frameworks. Unfortunately, only a smattering of political economic analysis of IWM in Africa has been made especially using the green neoliberal analytical lens (Obeng-Odoom 2013, 2014). As a result, a case can be made for adopting the green neoliberal framework in IWM research in a country that possesses the continent's largest economy and has contributed substantially to understanding of Africa's IWM systems (NBS 2014; Nzeadibe 2013). In sum, and further to the thinking of Cline-Cole and O'Keefe (2006, 386), this study:
explores the socio-environmental consequences of capitalist growth and expansion, and provides confirmation of the continuing close links between environment and development. It highlights the complex and dynamic role of politics and economic institutions in precipitating environmental degradation or aggravating environmental crises and reinforces the long-standing impression of persistent underlying environment and development difficulties, despite policy and other interventions designed to promote liberalization and globalization.
Herein lies the point of departure and plank on which the present paper rests. Going forward, the remaining sections will attempt to explicate this viewpoint.
The study context
This study was situated in the city of Aba in Nigeria. Aba is the commercial and industrial nerve centre of south-eastern Nigeria, which provides goods and services to adjacent urban areas and international markets (Meagher 2010). It is located between latitudes 5o2′N and 5o10′N, and longitudes 7o18′E and 7o25′E (Figure 1). The study area covers an estimated area of 100 km2. It includes the entire Aba North and Aba South Local Government Areas (LGAs) and parts of Osisioma and Ugwunagbo LGAs. As of 2006 Aba had a population of 1,022,138 (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2009).
Aba is thus a rapidly growing city in terms of population size, concentration of socio-economic activities and general urban expansion. Urban growth and development in Aba has been largely unplanned, resulting in the location of various incompatible land use activities in close proximity. With residential, industrial and commercial land uses in juxtaposition, urban environmental problems such as noise, traffic congestion, air pollution, street hawking and solid waste are ubiquitous in the city.
The city also reflects in many ways the social issues confronting the informal sector in urban SWM in Nigeria (Nzeadibe and Anyadike 2012). It thus presented a suitable case study for this research. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach comprising focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, field observations, key-informant interviews, institutional/policy appraisal and reference to relevant literature, and questionnaire survey of 401 waste pickers as described elsewhere (Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012). The next section presents a critical juxtaposing of social sustainability with IWM to see the extent to which the two concepts can flow together in urban policy.
Social sustainability1 and informal waste management
Recent research has noted social sustainability as an emerging area of urban planning policy and practice in the developed and developing world (Dempsey et al. 2011; Karuppannan and Sivam 2011; Woodcraft 2012). Given its myriad conceptual contributions from social scientists, Vallance, Perkins, and Dixon (2011, 342) argue that social sustainability is a concept that is associated with a degree of chaos. Social sustainability is also a concept whose boundaries and definitions are somewhat fluid and imprecise as some aspects of social sustainability such as quality of life, community wellbeing and social recognition are often difficult to measure and delineate (Boström 2012).
It is thus instructive to note that no consensus seems to exist on what criteria and perspectives should be adopted in defining social sustainability. Colantonio (2007, 4) echoes the view that each author or policy-maker derives their own definition according to discipline-specific criteria or study perspectives, making a generalised definition difficult to achieve. In spite of this observation, we hasten to add that the concept is arguably relevant in today's rapidly urbanising world and is increasingly being used by governments, public agencies, policy-makers, non-governmental organisations and corporations to frame urban development policy (Woodcraft 2012). According to the UN-HABITAT (2002), cities must balance the social, economic and environmental needs of present and future generations and this should include a clear commitment to urban poverty reduction and social inclusion. Waste picking can lay claims to performing an important social function in cities as it is about people and their lives (Vieira 2013). Thus, the concept of social sustainability is considered here relevant and is being applied to analysis of IWM, an activity that is often not subjected to sustainability appraisal and not usually considered in social policy and poverty reduction strategies of Nigeria (NPC 2004, 2007) or her development partners (IMF 2007). Given the above, we ask whether sustainability can be compatible with IWM.
On this score, we note that the most profound argument to date linking IWM and sustainability is perhaps that by Medina (2007), who avers that scavenging, if supported, can be ‘a perfect example of sustainable development’ since it is socially desirable, economically viable and environmentally sound (254). This author based these conclusions on the fact that scavenging in Africa, Asia and Latin America has the potential to create jobs; reduce poverty; save municipalities money; supply inexpensive materials to industry, thus improving its competitiveness; conserve natural resources and help clean up the urban environment (ix). These benefits arguably transcend the economic and environmental objectives of sustainability. Thus, scavenging can, in fact, support not only the economic and environmental dimensions but also the social pillars of sustainability.
In Nigeria, however, it may be somewhat presumptuous to argue affirmatively that IWM can be socially sustainable given prevailing societal prejudices towards the informal waste sector (Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012), a situation occasioned by the low premium placed on SWM in the local governance agenda. SWM still ranks low in the governance agenda of most Nigerian cities and there exists no policy, programmatic support or official recognition for the waste economy. Additionally, operators of the informal economy have been victims of social opprobrium and hostile urban governance policies such as the recent prohibition of cart pushers and their activities in Lagos (Nzeadibe and Anyadike 2010). In short, informal waste workers are not seen as stakeholders in the SWM process in the Nigerian urban space (Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012, 353).
However, credible instances exist where development and social support for IWM has led to sustainable improvements in SWM (Dias 2012; Scheinberg, Wilson, and Rodic 2010). What is being canvassed here, therefore, is that instead of seeing the informal actors as a problem requiring urgent solution, the more desirable approach should be to integrate them into SWM planning, building on their practices and experience, while working to improve efficiency and social conditions of labour for those involved. Recognising the significant contributions of the sector to environment and development in the absence of support, the case has recently been made in a paper seeking to inform policy development in this direction (Nzeadibe and Adama 2013). Having examined the political economy of waste picking and the nexus between sustainability and IWM in previous sections, the next section zooms in on livelihood thinking in relation to waste-picking activity in urban Nigeria.
Sustainability of livelihoods in dumpsite scavenging in urban Nigeria
The present research is concerned with the social sustainability of waste picking, an activity that saves millions of people worldwide from starvation (Medina 2007). In recognition of this, the analytical framework adapted to underpin this research is the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) (DFID 1999). Five assets that support livelihood recognised in the SLF are human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital and financial capital, and these are the core of the livelihood framework (DFID 1999).2 In the context of SWM, the livelihood assets may include capacity for labour, education, health (human capital); the recoverable waste and recyclable materials (natural capital); income derivable from waste collection and recycling, e.g. the garbage collection fees and money realised from sale of materials (financial capital); capital equipment or housing, e.g. a tricycle or a storage facility (physical capital); and social networks and informal relationships supporting the scavenger (social capital) (Adama 2012; Didero 2012, 29). These assets interact with policies, institutions and processes to shape the choice of livelihood strategies and outcomes in waste recycling.
The natural capital provides the material, energy, processes and information which people combine to produce and accumulate other capital stocks – from which are derived positive livelihood outcomes. Urban solid waste represents a major part of natural capital and should therefore be seen as a means of contributing to sustainable urban livelihoods. Another pertinent question posed at this juncture is whether the livelihood of dumpsite scavengers in urban Nigeria can be socially sustainable. It is argued that the livelihoods of dumpsite scavengers depend entirely on access to a continuous supply of solid waste, and to a significant degree on its continued poor management by city authorities (Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012; Rouse and Ali 2001). In this context, Chintan (2011) avers that the term ‘sustainable’ referred to both the security of a population's access to a resource, as well as the long-term viability of using the resource without depleting it. In the case of waste pickers, the sustainability of their livelihood refers to their access to waste as well as the continued existence of waste and the recycling sector itself (23). This conceptual discussion is, therefore, an attempt at contextualising the social conditions of the informal recyclers that influence their ability to access assets and make a livelihood in a politically volatile, economically vibrant but environmentally poor Nigerian city (Kalu 2014; Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012).
It needs to be recognised that in addition to availability of and access to waste, a picker's livelihood may comprise good health, ability to work and a supportive social environment and infrastructure (Rouse and Ali 2001). The UK Department for International Development (DFID) (1999) identifies the elements of the SLF as vulnerability context, livelihood assets, transforming structures and processes, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes. Although research on livelihoods in IWM has applied the SLF to varying degrees in both developed societies (Gutberlet et al. 2009) and developing countries (Chintan 2011; Didero 2012; Rouse and Ali 2001), a combined political-economic livelihood approach has not previously been utilised in analysis of waste picking, with a view to unravelling relations of state/institutional policies towards IWM, thus necessitating research of this nature in Nigerian cities.
Vulnerability context
The vulnerability context frames the external environment in which people exist. People's livelihoods and the wider availability of assets are fundamentally affected by critical trends as well as by shocks and seasonality, over which they have limited or no control. Urban violence and widespread insecurity prevalent in the study area may be regarded as shocks which inhibit a picker's ability to make a living. For example, Orji (2012, 114) avers that in states in south-east Nigeria, the spate of kidnappings and high-profile armed robberies has become a major threat to the livelihood and wellbeing of the people. In Aba, the inherent insecurity and dangers to the personal safety of waste workers could be considered as shocks as in recent times, the city has become synonymous with kidnapping, murder and all sorts of organised crime (Ezeibe and Eze 2012; Meagher 2010; Ukiwo, Henri-Ukoha, and Emole 2012).
In the words of Ukiwo, Henri-Ukoha, and Emole (2012, 24):
for several months in 2009 and 2010 (the period during which the fieldwork of the study reported in the present paper was conducted), armed bandits literary (sic) turned Abia State into a Hobbesian state of nature where life was short, nasty and brutish. Aba, the once bustling commercial capital of the state that attracted merchants and buyers from across West Africa became a ghost of itself as its new image as den of kidnappers and robbers repulsed visitors and forced its rich residents to relocate to safer places.
As observed in the preceding paragraph, the present study found that the rampant incidents of kidnapping and insecurity in Aba led residents of the city including even the poor to either relocate or keep very low profiles. As a key informant noted:3
The insecurity in Aba got so bad that people in jobs perceived as prestigious and professional such as bankers and lawyers had to hide their identities when going to work. Lawyers for example, no longer put on their suits, wigs and gowns in the streets; they would often hide such identifying clothes in cheap black waterproof bags and board commercial tricycles popularly known as Keke NAPEP while going to courts rather than use their own vehicles. The reason behind this disguise is to present themselves as ordinary folks with ‘no kidnap value'.
With this exodus of people and businesses from the city – including waste pickers and scrap dealers – their livelihood pursuits were abandoned in favour of places perceived to be safer such as rural areas and neighbouring cities such as Owerri, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Uyo. The livelihood of the informal waste workers therefore suffered gravely during this period of siege of the city of Aba by hoodlums. Waste pickers in Aba have also been reported to be victims of urban violence and mob actions and some dead and decomposing human bodies, ostensibly of picker victims, have reportedly been encountered at the dumps.4
With the seeming restoration of law and order in Aba following the killing of the notorious kidnap kingpin named Osisikankwu by the Nigerian army (Eke 2010; Vanguard Online Edition 2010), the waste workers were subjected to another dimension of shocks: soldiers guarding the city arbitrarily arrested, beat up and harassed people they perceived (rightly or wrongly) were wandering. For fear of arrest or being manhandled for straying, wandering or being seen as constituting a security threat or as criminals in disguise, pickers who would often move from place to place in search of recyclables tended to limit their movement and area of coverage, thus resulting in less access and less collection of materials, hence less revenue and increased vulnerability.
Similarly, motorists in Aba – who often do not care about the pickers – frequently knocked them down. Pickers may even be lynched by irate mobs that mistake them for thieves. As a result, it has previously been reported that the dead and decomposing corpses of picker victims of the mobs are often encountered at the dumps (Nzeadibe 2006), a situation similar to that reported by Medina (2007) concerning treatment of waste pickers in Colombia.
Security of tenure is also a factor in the vulnerability context. Long distances between places of residence and occupational activity spaces can limit the total income because of higher transportation costs. Therefore, the pickers endure dangerous conditions in order to be closer to their sources of livelihood, the dumpsites. The prevalent lack of tenure rights in slums exposes the dwellers to insecurity and constant fear of eviction from their settlements around the disposal site. The introduction of new technologies or the process of modernisation of the SWM system may also rob them of their right to waste. Again, poor building materials are at risk of destruction during extreme weather conditions and all these combine to pose a real threat to their livelihoods.
Livelihood assets
The livelihood framework identifies five assets upon which livelihoods are built. These are human capital such as good health, personal skills, knowledge or ability to perform labour; social capital or the networks one can draw on to further one's livelihood; physical capital comprising the basic tools, infrastructure or equipment one possesses; financial capital including one's cash and assets; and natural capital, or the waste material stock one has access to.
From the survey, pickers in Aba have low levels of education and reported multiple health problems. The health problems suffered mostly by the waste pickers are fever/headache (43.1%), malaria (34.7%) and bruising (31.9%). The major self-reported health and safety problems of the waste pickers are presented in Figure 2. It is to be noted that a picker's good health and energy to work are a part of his or her human capital. Ill health of a waste picker will diminish his or her ability to access natural capital to sustain his or her livelihood. Consequently, the livelihood of a sick or injured picker is vulnerable as he or she may suffer serious deprivations as a result.
As it concerns recyclers' perception of their health and safety conditions, this study found that a large percentage of waste pickers (81.5%) do not believe that the above health and safety problems which they frequently suffer from are related to the job they do. On the other hand, 18.5% perceive their health problems as related to their job. Further investigation of the earlier view tended to present these problems as related to the influence of ‘supernatural forces' such as witchcraft from their villages.
Since people's perceptions regarding environmental problems often mirror their reality and perception can shape the preparedness of these actors to adapt and change their practices (Getis, Getis, and Fellman 2008), this study sought to examine their willingness to adopt innovations/interventions that could improve their health status and strengthen their livelihood.
Perceptions of pickers' health and safety have previously been investigated in Vietnam (Nguyen et al. 2003), Brazil (Gutberlet and Baeder 2008) and Bangladesh (Patwary, O'Hare, and Sarker 2011). However, these three studies used a much smaller sample size of 41, 47 and 45 informal waste workers respectively vis-à-vis the present study on Aba's recycling system. In the present study, most waste pickers in Aba perceived their health as poor, while others responded that they suffered myriad health problems. This seems to buttress the data presented on the self-reported occupational health problems in Figure 2, hence we report on the vulnerability of their livelihoods.
To meet their health needs, most waste pickers in Aba patronise chemist shops/patent medicine stores or adopt self-medication in taking care of their health needs (79.2%) while less than a quarter of pickers visit clinics to meet their health needs. When asked if they had visited a health worker in the last six months, most waste pickers (63.8%) responded in the negative while 36.2% responded in the affirmative.
Transforming structures and processes
Within the livelihoods framework are the institutions, organisations, policies and legislation that shape livelihoods. They effectively determine:
access (to various types of capital, to livelihood strategies and to decision-making bodies and sources of influence);
the terms of exchange between different types of capital; and
returns (economic and otherwise) to any given livelihood strategy.
Because they lack political power and representation, their voice is often not heard in matters that adversely affect their livelihood. The recent urban insecurity in Aba and its aftermath are pointers to this. Consequently, the livelihood of waste pickers tends to be under serious jeopardy in an atmosphere of uncertainty and insecurity. Extortionist tendencies, corruption and harassment of the informal waste sector by police and LGA officials have been reported. Table 1 illustrates the frequency of police/local government interference in activities of the waste workers in Aba as reported by them. These forms of interference have negative implications on the vulnerability of their livelihoods.
| Frequency of police/local government interference | % |
|---|---|
| No response | 6.2 |
| Never | 57.9 |
| Sometimes | 34.9 |
| Always | 1.0 |
| Total | 100 |
With the harassments in mind, some of the scavengers sighted during the fieldwork took to their heels or became un cooperative when approached for an interview. This is probably because they thought that the researchers were government agents sent to arrest them for tax evasion. Local authorities and their revenue agents often molest and harass passers-by who fail to provide proof of their payment of taxes on demand. In the absence of such proof, the local officials extort money from helpless victims in most Nigerian cities (Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012).
Similarly, not being born in the city is a problem for pickers' residency status and tends to limit their assertiveness and claim to be indigenes of the area who know their way around the city. This may also mean that they may lack the necessary informal networks for survival in the city while being subjected to deprivation and harassment. This situation has been noted as a factor in pickers' vulnerability and could indeed put their livelihoods in serious jeopardy (Nzeadibe, Anyadike, and Njoku-Tony 2012). Again, there seems to be little cooperation among waste pickers and this has been a major limitation to their aspirations for improved social capital and collective organising.
Livelihood strategies
These denote the range and combination of activities and choices that people make/undertake in order to achieve their livelihood goals (including productive activities, investment strategies, reproductive choices etc.). A strategy practised by some waste pickers is to involve their children in the trade. Children of school age are often involved in the recycling trade either as child waste pickers operating alone or with their parents, or as helpers in their parents' junk shops. Such activities are often at the expense of their education.
This study observed that a number of children are involved in waste picking and the sale of recyclables. Some of the waste pickers work independently while others assist their parents in undertaking different tasks. On being approached by the researcher for an interview, the independent child pickers took to their heels, probably thinking that the researcher was a government agent sent to arrest them. Figure 3 illustrates a case of child labour in scavenging where a man is picking waste with his son of school age.
On the other hand, another strategy deployed by waste pickers is to increase the number of picking days in the hope that adequate amounts of materials will be recovered and sold. The number of days in a week that Aba scavengers put into the job was investigated and is shown in Figure 4.
The mean number of days worked by Aba pickers was 5.65. From Figure 4, it will be seen that 65% of waste pickers in Aba worked for six days of the week. Five per cent of the pickers worked for the entire seven days of the week while 18% of pickers worked for five days. The pickers that worked for three or four days would seem to be those who have alternative occupations and invested their time in these occupations on the other days.
In the same vein, this study investigated the extent to which spouses of pickers contributed to the domestic economy and livelihood as a livelihood strategy. Consequently, the survey sought data on the occupation of waste pickers' spouses. Figure 5 illustrates this and it is seen that spouses of most waste workers are unemployed while a substantial percentage of pickers' spouses (23%) are employed in the informal sector as petty traders.
This situation is hardly surprising considering that Aba is a heavily commercial area and there are no entry barriers into the sector. It would also tend to reinforce the vulnerability of the households of informal waste workers. Most of them lacked a fall-back mechanism or safety net in cases of adversity, further accentuating the frequent insecurity of their livelihoods.
Livelihood outcomes
These are the achievements or outputs of livelihood strategies. The outcomes revolve around being able to generate incomes for sustenance rather than for other investments. Overall, pickers often do not save for a rainy day and their lives are largely subsistent. In this case, sustainability of the livelihood is in serious jeopardy.
This study avers that social sustainability of livelihoods in the waste recycling system in the study city is conditional and inextricably tied to good urban governance and improved social participation and inclusion of the waste workers. Inclusiveness would reflect both the vision and strategy of the Global Campaign on Urban Governance to realise the ‘Inclusive City' (UN-HABITAT 2002, 11).
Conclusions
This study is an attempt at integrating livelihood thinking with political economy of production and consumption in examining the social sustainability of informal waste management in Nigerian cities. It also highlights issues germane to local governance to explicate complex social conditions of labour in the Nigerian waste economy in relation to state/institutional policies. Political economy structurally defined the research while the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework related to functional aspects of waste-picking activity.
The 21st-century urban Nigeria has seen an apparent intensification of waste picking with an attribution to globalisation. The study argues that IWM can be compatible with sustainability as it saves cities huge sums of money and landfill space, drives entrepreneurship, generates employment and incomes, mitigates the problem of climate change, creates a ‘green economy’ and conserves non-renewable resources. In short, the sector can engender the creation of green jobs. Considering the prevailing neoliberal policies and their consequence on the rise in waste picking in urban Nigeria, this study notes that the social pillar of the sustainability debate has been inadvertently left out of previous discussions on the waste economy. The paper argued against the continued neglect of social sustainability in research on the informal waste economy while favouring its social inclusion. It argues, however, that a nuanced understanding of the underlying political economy is a sine qua non in the quest for social sustainability in the economy.
The informal economy is using entrepreneurship of waste as a vehicle for sustainable livelihood creation while contesting and filling the vacuum left by the state. Social sustainability in this case demands more equitable operating niches for the informal economy and needs to be supported through inclusive social and economic policy initiatives, taking cognisance that, despite the challenges facing it, the sector is making valuable development contributions. As a result, this study canvasses socially inclusive policies in order to empower operators of the waste economy given their contribution in the absence of official support. The waste economy, it is argued in this paper, can be a veritable partner in the fight against poverty, climate change and environmental degradation arising from an ever-increasing culture of consumption, lack of official policy on solid waste management and glaring absence of formal recovery and recycling of municipal wastes in Nigeria.
This study has utilised an adaptation of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework where baseline data are unavailable or inadequate, and dependence on natural resources is common. It is an attempt to organise the information obtained, looking through an alternative ‘livelihoods lens'. It would, thus, aid the development of a deeper understanding of the dynamics, threats and opportunities in the livelihood of dumpsite scavengers and provide useful insights that could help to understand the multiplex relationships and social and political economy conditions in the recycling of urban solid waste in Nigeria.