Ecobreves – CHILE: Garbage Collectors, Unite!

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

SANTIAGO, Jul 14 2007 (IPS) - On Jul. 11 in Chile, the National Movement of Garbage Collectors was born. With more than 200 members, the celebrated by marching under the slogan “Organized collectors will never be stepped on”. The group wants to create respect for their activity, which informally employs more than 30,000 people, providing monthly income of some 350 dollars, and to turn it into a “force that can demand from local and national authorities formal recognition of their work”, given that they “compete” with the municipal garbage collectors in trucks, spokesman Ezequiel Estay told Tierramérica.

“Chile was the only country that didn't have representation in the Latin American movement” of informal garbage collectors, he added.

“The deaths of six collectors in May, the result of a fire at their home used as a collection center, pushed our plans” to organize, said the leader, who believes that he and his fellow workers are falsely stereotyped as alcoholics and drug addicts by the general public.