South Africa is racing against time to build a circular economy that can withstand mounting waste volumes, shrinking landfill airspace and intensifying environmental pressures.
However, one uncomfortable truth continues to threaten the country’s transition: our circular economy strategy will fail without the full integration of informal waste pickers.
For decades informal reclaimers have been the backbone of South Africa’s recycling economy. They recover 60% to 90% of all post-consumer packaging collected for recycling, far outperforming municipal systems and private contractors.
They save cities millions in landfill operating costs, extend landfill lifespan, and reduce carbon emissions by diverting material back into production cycles.
Despite the scale of their contribution they remain structurally excluded. Municipal policies continue to treat them as nuisances rather than partners.
Infrastructure remains inaccessible, from secure sorting spaces to basic ablution facilities. Extended producer responsibility schemes intended to drive investment into recycling have yet to meaningfully benefit those who perform most of on-the-ground recovery.
Meanwhile, industry-led recycling initiatives often bypass informal workers entirely in favour of “formalised” solutions that are expensive, inefficient and disconnected from real collection dynamics.
This disconnect represents one of the most significant blind spots in South Africa’s circular economy transition: the assumption that recycling systems can be modernised without the people who make them function.
The transition to a circular economy is not only a technological shift but a governance shift. The institutional model is fragmented and characterised by inconsistent policies, siloed departments and weak coordination between municipalities, producer responsibility organisations and private sector actors.
Without a coherent inclusion strategy, informal waste pickers remain at the margins of decision-making, yet at the centre of operational reality.
Digital transformation adds opportunity and risk. Blockchain-enabled traceability, digital identification, mobile payment systems and eLearning platforms could enhance transparency, strengthen supply chain accountability and unlock income security for waste pickers.
However, without deliberate design for inclusion, digitalisation could entrench inequality by formalising systems that exclude those without connectivity, data visibility or financial access.
To avoid this, South Africa needs a new approach. Research shows the most resilient circular economy models in the Global South are those built on co-governance: partnership frameworks where municipalities, private recyclers, producer responsibility organisations, nongovernmental organisations and waste-picker organisations share accountability for collection, data capture, infrastructure and value distribution.
Structural inclusion, not symbolic recognition, is what enables stable incomes, improved working conditions and higher recycling rates.
My research proposes a hybrid circular governance digital model that brings these elements together. It emphasises joint decision-making, interoperable digital systems, targeted infrastructure investment and formal recognition of waste pickers as central actors in the recycling value chain. This is not charity but smart economics.
If South Africa is serious about meeting its recycling targets, unlocking green jobs and building a circular economy that is efficient and just, informal waste pickers cannot remain on the periphery. They are not ancillary to the system. They are the system.
A circular economy without waste picker integration is not a circular economy at all. It is a missed opportunity, an incomplete strategy and ultimately a pathway to failure.
South Africa’s transition will succeed only when its most important recycling workers are treated as what they truly are: essential partners in creating a sustainable, inclusive and future-ready urban economy.
Fuma is a circular economy researcher and practitioner focused on integrating informal waste pickers into South Africa’s formal recycling economy.
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