Bogotá's waste pickers organise to be paid for recycling
A third-generation waste picker, Nohra Padilla helped organise Bogotá's recyclers and won legal recognition and payment for their work in the city's waste system.
The small thing
She began recycling alongside her family at the age of seven, and later joined fellow recyclers in forming cooperatives to protect their right to keep working.
The problem
Informal recyclers recover much of a city's reusable material but have often been excluded, harassed and poorly paid. In Bogotá, plans to privatise waste collection threatened to shut them out of the work altogether.
Why Nohra started
When the dump that supported her community closed, recyclers had to search the streets, where they faced harassment. Padilla told the Goldman Prize that their goal was to improve working and living conditions for recyclers.
What they did
In 1990 Padilla helped set up the Asociación de Recicladores de Bogotá, which grew to represent about 3,000 recyclers, and helped build a national association. Recyclers ran their own collection centres and campaigned for recognition.
She filed the legal challenge that led Colombia's Constitutional Court in December 2011 to cancel a large tender that would have handed recycling to private companies, ordering that waste pickers be included in the system.
What changed
According to the Goldman Prize and WIEGO, Bogotá's mayor then made recycling mandatory and created payment for recyclers' services, and recyclers became formal participants in city waste planning, with uniforms and identity cards. WIEGO reported that 790 waste pickers and their families could see their earnings double or triple. Later outcomes across the city have not been independently measured.
What they learned
Padilla has said that waste pickers have been invisible everywhere and that change only came once they organised, and that access to waste is the key to protecting their work.
“Becoming organized is a difficult process. In every country in the world, waste pickers have been invisible”Nohra Padilla, as quoted by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing)
Copy this idea
Practical guidance written by our editors from the sources below. Adapt it to your place, and check local rules and safety first.
- Problem addressed
- Informal recyclers excluded from formal waste systems.
- What to do
- Support recyclers to organise into associations and push for recognition, fair contracts and payment.
- Materials and resources
- Meeting space, records of material collected, legal advice.
- Approximate cost
- Low
- Skills
- Organising, negotiation, knowledge of local waste law.
- Time
- Years.
- People needed
- Recyclers themselves, with allies in civil society.
- Difficulty
- Hard
- Risks and limitations
- Organisers can face hostility from vested interests; prioritise safety and alliances.
- How to adapt it
- Residents can help locally by separating recyclables and supporting recycler cooperatives.
- Lessons learned
- Change came when recyclers organised and claimed a formal role.
Why it matters
Paying recyclers does not by itself solve a city's waste problem. But Bogotá's experience shows that recognising the people already doing the work can make recycling fairer and more dependable, and it has been cited as a model by waste-picker organisations elsewhere.
What didn't work
She faced threats and false accusations, was jailed for eight days before being acquitted, and was refused state protection. Thousands of recyclers elsewhere in Colombia were still outside payment schemes, according to WIEGO.
Editor's note
Most recent source found (Bogotá city government, May 2022) describes her as a member of the Asociación de Recicladores de Bogotá working on a plastic-wood venture. No 2024–2026 news was found.
Sources: how do we know?
Evidence level: Documented. Supported by reliable published sources such as UN agencies, award bodies and reputable journalism. Not yet independently re-verified by our editors. What the person says and what independent sources establish are attributed separately in the text.
- award body
Nohra Padilla – 2013 Goldman Environmental Prize, South & Central America — Goldman Environmental Prize, 2013Supports: Background, ARB about 3,000 members, national association about 12,000, 2011 court ruling, mayoral decree on payment, threats and denied protection. - organisational
Bogota Recycler Nohra Padilla Praised on World Stage — WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), 2013Supports: ARB founded 1990; December 2011 Constitutional Court decision; 2013 payment system; 790 waste pickers' earnings; quote. - reputable journalism
La recicladora — Selecciones (Reader's Digest Mexico), 19 September 2016Supports: Executive director of ARB since 2002; national association president; jailed eight days and later acquitted; violence against recyclers. - government
Labores de reciclaje en Bogotá, destacadas por Agencia EFE a nivel global — Alcaldía de Bogotá, 19 May 2022Supports: Status in 2022: ARB member working on a recycler-led plastic-wood venture. - award body
2013 Prize Q&A with Nohra Padilla — Goldman Environmental Prize, 2013Supports: Her stated goal of improving recyclers' conditions; began aged seven; dump closure at 16.