Waste Picker

Information about Waste Picker

A scavenger pouring water onto the paper she has collected, in order to increase the weight of, and thus the profit made from, her collection, in Hong Kong.

Scavenging in Jakarta

A waste picker, or a scavenger, is a person who picks out recyclable elements from mixed waste wherever it may be temporarily accessible or disposed of ^[1]. A person who scavenges for junk, food, materials, or other items is also referred to as a scavenger. Waste pickers may be employed in material recovery facilities or mechanical biological treatment systems to manually recover recylables as opposed to automated systems.

In developing countries waste pickers may seek the financial value of the recyclable elements themselves to sell on or use.

A waste picker is different from a waste collector, the waste collected by the latter may be destined to the landfill or to the incinerator, not necessarily for recycling. Developing nations depend on rag pickers to reduce the waste reaching landfills

Etymology

Scavenger is an alteration of scavager, from Middle English skawager meaning "customs collector," from skawage meaning "customs," from Old North French escauwage meaning "inspection," from escauwer meaning "to inspect," of Germanic origin; akin to Old English scEawian meaning "to look at", and modern English "show" (with semantic drift).

The word scavenger when being used to refer to human beings has negative connotations, conjuring up images of low-class or poor people who collect junk because they cannot afford the proper materials they need.

However, it need not have this negative connotation. It may also be used to refer to people that scavenge the remains of broken down cars and reuse the parts. A scavenger may be merely your happy-go-lucky junk collector who has a garage full of broken chainsaws and Corrado parts awaiting fix. In this usage, it is not altogether different from its use in a biological or zoological context for an animal's role in the environment, where the word obviously does not carry such connotations.

References

1. ^ Solid Waste Management Glossary

External links

Scavenger Cooperatives in Asia and Latin America (PDF)

Topics related to waste	[ edit]
Anaerobic digestion \| Compost \| Dustbins \| E-waste \| Waste collection vehicle \| Incineration \| Landfill \| Mechanical biological treatment \| Radioactive waste \| Recycling \| Reuse \| Sewage \| Scrap \| Sewage treatment \| Waste \| Toxic waste \| Waste management \| Waste management topics \| Waste minimisation \|}

Recycling is the reprocessing of materials into new products. Recycling generally prevents the waste of potentially useful materials, reduces the consumption of raw materials and reduces energy usage, and hence greenhouse gas emissions, compared to virgin production.
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Waste, rubbish, trash, garbage, or junk is unwanted or undesired material. "Waste" is the general term; though the other terms are used loosely as synonyms, they have more specific meanings: rubbish or trash are mixed household waste and including paper
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A materials recovery facility or materials reclamation facility (MRF -- pronounced "murf") is a specialized plant that receives, separates and prepares recyclable materials for marketing to end-user manufacturers.
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A mechanical biological treatment system is a form of waste processing facility that combines a sorting facility with a form of biological treatment such as composting or anaerobic digestion.
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Manual may mean:

Instructions
Instruction manual (computer and video games)
Online help

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Automation (ancient Greek: = self dictated), roboticization [1] or industrial automation or numerical control is the use of control systems such as computers to control industrial machinery and processes, replacing human operators.
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waste collector, also known as:

UK English US English Australian English
Dustbin man Garbage man Garbo
Bin man Garbage collector Garbologist (col)
Dustman Trash collector
Refuse collector Sanitation engineer
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landfill, also known as a dump or tip (and historically as a midden), is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment.
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Incineration is a waste treatment technology that involves the combustion of organic materials and/or substances.^[1] Incineration and other high temperature waste treatment systems are described as "thermal treatment".
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Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting customs duties and for controlling the flow of animals and goods (including personal effects and hazardous items) in and out of a country.
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Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all languages comprising this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the latter mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Northern Europe.
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Old English/Anglo-Saxon}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: ang
ISO 639-3: ang Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon^[1], Englisc
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Volkswagen Corrado is a hatchback coupé developed by German automaker Volkswagen and built by Karmann in Osnabrück, Germany between 1988 and 1995. Conceived as a successor to the successful Scirocco, it is a three-door hatchback with a 2+2 seating layout.
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Biology (from Greek: βίος, bio, "life"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge"), also referred to as the biological sciences, is the scientific study of life.
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Dumpster diving (DD), is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash to find items that have been discarded for being unusable by their owners, but may be useful to the Dumpster diver.
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For the White Stripes song, see Rag and Bone.

Rag-and-bone man is a British phrase for a junk dealer. Historically the phrase referred to an individual who would travel the streets of a city with a horsedrawn cart, and would collect old rags, (for converting into
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Junk man is the (largely American) term for a person that buys, trades, or collects disparate items (scrap and usable/repairable things) that are considered of little or no value to their owners.
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Anaerobic digestion (AD) is the natural process of biological degradation of organic material in the absence of air. An anaerobic digester is a man-made system that harnesses this process to treat waste and produce biogas and anaerobic digestate, a soil-improving material.
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Compost is the aerobically decomposed remnants of organic materials. Compost is used in gardening and agriculture as a soil amendment, and commercially by the landscaping and container nursery industries.
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A waste container (known more commonly in British English as a dustbin, rubbish-bin, ashcan or simply bin and American English as a trash can) is a container, which is usually made out of metal or plastic.^[1].
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Electronic waste, "e-waste" or "Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment" ("WEEE") is a waste type consisting of any broken or unwanted electrical or electronic appliance.
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A waste collection vehicle (WCV), is a truck specially designed to pick up smaller quantities of waste and haul it to landfills and other recycling or treatment facilities. They are a common sight in most urban areas.
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Radioactive wastes are waste types containing radioactive chemical elements that do not have a practical purpose. They are sometimes the products of a nuclear processes, such as nuclear fission.
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Reuse is using an item more than once. This includes conventional reuse where the item is used again for the same function, and new-life reuse where it is used for a new function.
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Sewage is the mainly liquid waste containing some solids produced by humans which typically consists of washing water, faeces, urine, laundry waste and other material which goes down drains and toilets from households and industry.
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