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University of Calgary
PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository
Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations
2020-09-22
Waste Collection Technologies, Informal Waste
Pickers, and Urban Exclusion: A Case Study of
Calgary
Adeyemi, Dare Moses
Adeyemi, D. M. (2020). Waste Collection Technologies, Informal Waste Pickers, and Urban
Exclusion: A Case Study of Calgary (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary,
AB.
http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112572
master thesis
University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their
thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through
licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under
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Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
Waste Collection Technologies, Informal Waste Pickers, and Urban Exclusion: A Case Study of
Calgary.
by
Dare Moses Adeyemi
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN GEOGRAPHY
CALGARY, ALBERTA
SEPTEMBER, 2020
© Dare Moses Adeyemi 2020
ii
Abstract
Waste management engineers and administrators have conceived of technological
efficiency and optimization as the “modern” way to sustainable waste collection and
management. This instrumental ideology of technology offers a progressive chant for modern
waste collection technologies and a less enthusiastic one for the tools and techniques of informal
waste pickers. Few efforts have gone into conceptualizing the social context and implication of
waste collection technologies. In this thesis, I used a qualitative case study to explore the impact
of residential waste collection technologies on the exclusion of informal waste pickers in
Calgary. I draw on Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology to situate waste collection
technologies within social, economic, and political contexts in Calgary. I argue that the social
relations of ownership and control over waste collection technologies in Calgary illustrate
complex and contested values, norms, and privileges, which create an unequal social, material,
and technical relationship contributing to the exclusion of pickers and the exploitation of labor
and waste. Calgary’s new curbside program protects the social norms of private asset ownership
and consumerism, as well as the interest of private homeowners and some bureaucratic and large
capitalist individuals in Calgary. A local third-sector organization, Calgary Can, has resisted
these acts through its hook program; local bottle pickers have also resisted them through their
collection activity and technologies. These realities push back against the colloquial
understanding of modern waste collection technologies as value-free, a conception that
dominates academic research and city policies and programs in waste management.
Keywords: Waste management, Informal waste pickers, Waste collection technologies, Critical
Theory of Technology, Calgary.
iii
Acknowledgments
I want to acknowledge the privilege and grace of life I benefited from God. I also want to
appreciate the guidance, support, and encouragement I received throughout my studies. I want to
thank my supervisor, Ryan Burns, and my committee, Chui-Ling Tam and Alan Smart, for their
support, patience, and comments towards the completion of this thesis. I want to express my
gratitude to Paulina Medori, former Graduate Program Administrator of Geography Department,
whose smile, reminders, and encouragement helped me to meet deadlines and adjust to the
demands of graduate study. I also appreciate the graduate student study group of human
geography, including Danilo, Ricardo, Ana, and Angela. Thank you for sharing your time,
opinions, food, drinks, etc. with me. I also want to acknowledge everyone that shared their time
and views with me during my fieldwork; these include bottle pickers and staff of Calgary Can,
Uptown Bottle Depot, and the City of Calgary.
I am highly indebted to my family and friends for their support throughout this journey.
To my parents, siblings, Mrs. Efunjoke Dada, Mrs. Olushola Michael, and other extended family
members, thank you for your support and the roles you played in my life. A big thank you to the
pastor and youths of the Redeemed Christian Church of God Rehoboth Assembly, Calgary, for
your social and spiritual support. Thank you, Jemie and Darlington, for the encouragement and
reminders to finish my thesis. Thanks to Adegboyega During, the Itoje’s family, the Abiodun’s
family, Gabriel Sofekun, and other members of the Nigerian Student Association of the
University of Calgary. Finally, to my wife, Oluwatoyin Akinwunmi, thank you for your
emotional support and encouragement despite the physical distance and time difference between
us. I look forward to our reunion and bright future.
iv
Dedication
To all international students around the world, particularly those from
Nigeria, facing one difficulty or another, keep up the struggle! There is a light
at the end of the tunnel. To Ryan and other supervisors providing academic
and non-academic guidance and encouragement to international students, you
are an inspiration and blessing to us. I couldn’t have done this without you,
Ryan.
v
Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iii
Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iv
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Literature Review and Theoretical Framework .............................................................................. 3
The informal economy in waste management. ........................................................................... 4
Instrumentalism in waste collection. ........................................................................................... 7
The Critical Theory of Technology. ........................................................................................... 9
Research Design............................................................................................................................ 13
Research aim, questions, and positionality. .............................................................................. 13
The case study area—Calgary. ................................................................................................. 15
Data collection. ......................................................................................................................... 19
Interview and observation. .................................................................................................... 19
Secondary documents- Reports, images, and news archives. ............................................... 21
Data analysis. ............................................................................................................................ 21
Ethics......................................................................................................................................... 22
Bottle Picking As A Complex And Contested Relation. .............................................................. 23
Bottle Picking As a Fragmented Environmental Activism. ...................................................... 23
vi
"I call it treasure hunting": Bottle picking as an informal activity. .......................................... 26
"It is a strange sense of belonging": Bottle Picking as a complex social identity and relations.
................................................................................................................................................... 29
The Social Life Of Waste Collection Technologies In Calgary. .................................................. 37
The origin and City’s justification of Calgary’s new curbside program. ................................. 37
The role of City’s waste collection technologies in economic (dis)empowerment. ................. 41
Social norms in Calgary’s new curbside program. ................................................................... 47
Conclusion: Towards A Democratic Approach To City Waste Collection Technologies,
Programs, and Bylaw. ................................................................................................................... 53
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 57
Appendix A: Demographics of Interviewees. ............................................................................... 72
Appendix B: Interview Questions. ................................................................................................ 74
Appendic C: Field Observation Protocol ...................................................................................... 76
vii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Map of the study area (Calgary). .................................................................................. 18
Figure 2: A WRS waste truck driver picking up the black bin ..................................................... 44
Figure 3: Calgary Can Binner’s Hook .......................................................................................... 46
Figure 4: Protecting private bins on private property: City carts under chain and lock ............... 49
1
Introduction
Urbanization generates a high amount of waste in the process of modifying the natural
environment (Weiland & Richter, 2011; Jayasinghe, 2013). Urban waste has increased by almost
fifty percent to 1.3 billion tons per year between the early 2000s and now, and this is projected to
reach 2.2 billion tons by 2025 (Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012). As cities and waste generation
are booming (Giusti, 2009; Sjöström & Östblom, 2010; Ngoc & Schnitzer, 2009; United
Nations, 2016; Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012), poor waste management continues to deteriorate
human health and natural environment (Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012; Rockstrom, et al., 2009;
Giusti, 2009; Harrison & Hester, 2007). These realities call for sustainable waste management
practices (Pires, Martinho, Rodrigues, & Gomes, 2019; Ngoc & Schnitzer, 2009), to mitigate the
potentially detrimental consequences of the increasing amount of waste generated (Hoornweg &
Bhada-Tata, 2012; Ngoc & Schnitzer, 2009; Unnisa & Rav, 2012; Woolridge, Ward, & Phillips,
2006).
Efficient waste collection is critical to the success of any waste system. It links the source
to the waste handling facility, and often accounts for over half of municipal waste management
cost (Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012). As a sub-system of waste management, it includes source
segregation and storage equipment and transportation facilities that connect waste producers to
handlers (Nilsson, 2010). The global cost of providing this service and handling the waste is
estimated to increase from $205.4 billion in 2010 to $375 billion in 2025 (Hoornweg & Bhada-
Tata, 2012). The increasing cost of waste management is disturbing for city administrators
(Greco, Allegrini, Lungo, Savellini, & Gabellini, 2015).
2
In various dimensions and applications, waste management engineers and administrators
have conceived technological efficiency and optimization as the “modern” way to increase
service level, workers' safety, and reduce cost (Rogoff & Ross, 2017). Computerization has
influenced waste collection route planning and monitoring (Faccio, Persona, & Zanin, 2011).
Waste bins are now attached and monitored with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags
(Rogoff & Ross, 2017). Personal Protective Equipment and well-designed equipment and
vehicles have been described as solutions to occupational health issues in solid waste
management (Nilsson & Christensen, 2010).
There is a growing redefinition of urban waste as a resource (Williams K. S., 2013;
Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012), and this has drawn informal actors into a struggle for resources
and opportunities in waste generated in cities (Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012; Williams K. S.,
2013; Cavé, 2014). City administrators often justify attempts to eradicate informal waste pickers
with the “inefficient” and “primitive” nature of their activities and technologies. I argue that
these reasons are only valid when we understand waste collection technologies using the
instrumental notion of socio-political neutrality. When these technologies are instead considered
to be laden with power and struggles for legitimacy, we are able to see how they are used to
marginalize others, particularly informal waste pickers.
3
Literature Review and Theoretical Framework
A waste collection system includes processes and fabricated technical artifacts designed
for temporary storage, compression, and transfer of waste from its source to its management
facility (Nilsson, 2010). At the origin, households use bags and bins to store their waste. Formal
waste administrators often use large vehicles, fitted with a compacting system, to collect and
transfer these materials to waste processing or management stations. On the other hand, informal
waste actors often use carts, bags, and forks to collect and transport waste. In this section, I
examine the origin and schools of thoughts on the informal economy, and its adoption in waste
management study and activism. I argue that the concept is useful for conceptualizing the work
of unregistered waste actors but provides fewer opportunities for explaining the role of waste
collection technologies in the struggle for their recognition. Rather, the proliferation of research
and talks about the dominance of informal waste pickers in the global south underscore
Chakrabarti and Thakur’s (2010) argument that the concept is used to derogate developing
economies.
Finally, I discuss two theoretical perspectives of technology: Instrumentalism and
Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology. I ague that a “commonsense” instrumental approach
to technology, which dominates programs, policy and research in waste collection, offers fewer
opportunities for a truly transformative and democratic sustainable waste management that will
recognize the activities and techniques of informal waste pickers. Because of this, it is essential
to consider how waste collection technologies form power-laden processes and struggles—an
inquiry particularly well suited for critical theory approaches. Feenberg's critique of
4
instrumentalism and study of technological choices and codes show how social, ethical, moral,
and environmental factors create and stabilise the instrumental ideology.
The informal economy in waste management.
The concept of the informal sector was introduced in the early 1970s by various studies
on the economic realities of modern capitalism in Africa. Hart, for example, studied how
members of the Frafra group from Northern Ghana use supplementary income activities to
overcome poverty, dependency on others, and the financial deficit accrued from unemployment
or limited wage from the organized labor force and high cost of living in the southern city of
Accra (Hart, 1973). Hart argued that these migrant “sub-proletariat” workers engage in “petty
capitalism” with a belief compared to the hope of wealth held by poor British workers playing
the lottery to win someday and reduce their burden of hire-purchase payments. For Hart, these
informal occupations available to the Frafra people provide many irregular income opportunities
that make it difficult for them to be categorized as “unemployed”. By 1972, an International
Labor Organization (ILO) study into the prevalence of underemployment in Kenya used the term
“informal sector” to describe the small scale and unregistered economic activities prevalent in
the study area (Bacchetta, Ernst, & Bustamante, 2009).
Today, the debates about the informal sector have followed four primary schools of
thought: the dualist, structuralist, legalist, and voluntarist (Chen M. A., 2012). The dualist school
focuses on the dichotomous relationship between the informal and formal labor market (Nazier
& Ramadan, 2014), and considers the former as an inferior to the latter (Chen M. , 2005;
Bacchetta, Ernst, & Bustamante, 2009; Chakrabarti & Thakur, 2010). The structuralist theory of
informality, in contrast to the dualist, argued that there are connections and interdependencies
5
between the formal and informal modes of production (Chen M. , 2005; Slavnic, 2010; Chen M.
A., 2012) and across spaces (Roy, 2005). The legalist school considers the informal sector as a
product of a rigid regulatatory system (Chen M. A., 2012). The voluntarist school extends the
argument of the legalist school to suggest that informal entrepreneurs deliberately stay
unregistered to gain competitive advantages over their formal counterparts (Jütting & Laiglesia,
2009; Chen M. A., 2012). A concensus definition of the informal economy is difficult because
various schools of thoughts have used different approaches to study the origin, causes, existence,
fluidity, and linkages between the existing dichotomous informal and formal categories
(Bacchetta, Ernst, & Bustamante, 2009; Chen M. , 2014).
Since the “discovery” of the informal sector, and its reinterpretation as informality—a
way of life (AlSayyad, 2004; Herrle & Fokdal, 2011)—the concept has drawn attention to the
complex social norms, power relations and hierarchies that shape activities of informal waste
pickers (Caniato, Vaccari, Visvanathan, & Zurbrügg, 2014), their unequal access to resources
and opportunities (Adama, 2012; Gutberlet, 2008; dos Muchangos, Tokai, & Hanashima, 2017;
Le, Nguyen, & Zhu, 2018), and their collective efforts towards political mobilization and
negotiation with the state and against the exclusionary process of capitalist development
(Bhattacharya, 2018; Gutberlet, 2016; Gutberlet, 2008; Navarrete-Hernandez & Navarrete-
Hernandez, 2018). The concept of informality has proven very useful for researchers,
policymakers and activists (Chen M. , 2005; Roy, 2005) interested in the actions and struggles of
unregistered waste pickers and recyclers, particularly in developing economies (Velis, 2017).
Adama’s (2012) study of informal waste actors in Kaduna, Nigeria showed a well-structured but
complex relationship driven by money and social capital. Gutberlet’s (2008) study of informal
6
recyclers in Brazil also suggests that informal waste pickers use their collective efforts to assert
control over the recycling value chain and improve their livelihoods.
However, the use of the concept of informal economy inside and outside of waste
management has some theoretical, epistemological, and normative issues. First, academics and
practitioners often do not account for the social implications of waste collection technologies in
the struggle for recognition of informal waste pickers. Also, while similar employment in
developed countries is categorized as ‘nonstandard or atypical work’ (Chen M. , 2005), the
concept of informality has been used by mainstream development ideologies to categorize cities
of the global south (Roy, 2005) and perpetuate the devaluation and derogation of their economies
(Chakrabarti & Thakur, 2010). In addition, Chakrabarti & Thakur argued that the capitalo-centric
orientalist framework of the concept blinds it from capturing the multiplicity existing in and
among the centrist categories of formal and informal and glorifies modern capitalism as the
ultimate path to progress for developing world. For Herrle and Fokdal (2011), informality, in its
various economic and spatial dimensions, is a myth replaceable with an actor analysis of power,
legitimacy, and resources.
In summary, the concept of informal economy has been beneficial for advocating and
conceptualizing the efforts of marginalized actors providing unregistered waste management
services to neglected communities and as a means of livelihood. However, the role and social
implication of waste collection technologies in their struggle for waste and legitimacy are often
ignored. In the next sections, I trace the less acknowledged impact of technologies in research
and debates on informal waste pickers, and waste collection in general, to instrumentalism. I also
argue for Feenberg’s critical perspective that will account for its social context and implication.
7
By doing so, researchers will uncover the power-laden processes and struggles that shape the
adoption of the waste collection technologies and provide a socially meaningful interpretation of
waste collection tools and techniques used by informal waste pickers.
Instrumentalism in waste collection.
The instrumental ideology of technology is the colloquial ideology that technical objects
are independent of social forces and mediation (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013). As such, technology
is framed as humanly controlled but value-neutral (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013). Feenberg (2002)
argues that neutrality in instrumentalism is entrenched in universality, rationality and
transferability assumptions that technology is attributed to its rational character, subjected to the
same norm of efficiency, and indifferent to politics and its varying use: “A hammer is a hammer,
a steam turbine is a steam turbine, and such tools are useful in any social context” (p. 6).
Instrumentalism and its engineering perspective (Barnard, 2012) gained momentum in
waste collection and management as waste increase astronomically with large-scale critic of
open landfills (Williams I. D., 2015; Ewijka & Stegemann, 2016; El-Fadel, Findikakis, &
Leckie, 1997). Waste and city administrators turned to science and engineering methods as a
means to limit or eradicate the health and environmental hazards of waste management by using
every technology of reduction, reuse, recycling, and landfills (Tammemagi, 1999; Chang &
Pires, 2015; Wilson, Velis, & Rodic, 2013). Also, they often frame their technoscience approach
as unbiased, environmental-friendly, safe, and cost-effective.
Similarly, many researchers have promoted efficiency in waste collection through
modern segregation, routing, tracking, and compacting technology. Rogoff and Ross (2017)
argued that the application of modern waste collection technologies will increase service level,
8
workers safety and reduce cost for service users. Yang, Ma, Thompson, and Flower (2018)
argued that the “relatively primitive” technologies used by informal waste pickers and recyclers
contribute to their health problems and the deterioration of the environment in developing
countries. Ghose, Dikshit, and Sharma (2006) developed a GIS optimal routing model for waste
collection, and argued that investment in solid waste management should be justified with “the
least cost technologically feasible option” needed to achieve the required efficiency (p. 1293). In
general, many researchers and city administrators think of the techniques of informal waste
pickers as ineffective compared to modern waste collection technologies, without accounting for
their social context and implications.
The notion that waste collection technologies are value-neutral and scientifically rational,
borrowed from instrumentalism, is mere utopianism in its neglect of social forces.
Instrumentalism allows people to dissociate themselves and the ethical meaning of their actions
from their tools (Chen R. , 2011). The interpretation of technologies are subjected to technical
considerations as well as environmental and historical laws (Kaplan, 2009), while the
implications of human choices are often ignored and treated as arbitrary and non-rational
(Feenberg, 2002; Dusek, 2006). Administrators make trade-offs as the idea of the best
environmentally-friendly waste technology is impossible to determine (Morrissey & Browne,
2004; Santana, Rebelatto, Périco, Moralles, & Filho, 2015; Marcuse, 1998). By ignoring the
evaluation of the social context of this selection process, the values of the bureaucratic class are
shielded from criticism (Dusek, 2006). These suggest a political nature of technological
efficiency considered as value-neutral (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013), but may benefit some to the
detriment of others.
9
Instrumentalism in waste management research and programs posits that waste collection
technologies are humanly controlled but leaves unquestioned the social and political motives
behind its use. Its scientific and rational approach offers a progressive chant for modern waste
collection technologies, but a less enthusiastic one for techniques of informal waste pickers. To
address this issue and other weaknesses of instrumentalism is to situate technology in its social
context (Haklay, 2013) without providing an essentialist and monotonous interpretation
(Feenberg, 1999). To achieve this, I draw on Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology.
The Critical Theory of Technology.
Critical views have dominated recent studies of technology (Haklay, 2013). According
to this approach, technology has multiple paths and directions from its conception to
implementation stages, and technological choices and success rely on its social context and the
support it receives (Butryn, 2013; Haklay, 2013). Within the critical philosophy of technology,
Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology (CTT) unravels the dominance of socio-cultural
values and meanings in technology by considering the various interests and needs along its paths.
To conceptualize it, Feenberg combines the substantivist and constructivist interpretation of
technology to situate technology in the historical, social, and political processes of the society.
To achieve this, CTT combines concepts of formal bias, underdetermination, technical code, and
democratic rationalization (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013).
The concept of formal bias has been developed by Feenberg to show that normative and
hegemonic processes determine technological designs, development, and implementation.
Borrowing from Marx's critique of rational systems (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013), it argues that
technologies embody and reproduce the social, economic, and political conditions within which
10
they are constructed and contested (Kirkpatrick, 2020; Grimes & Feenberg, 2013). To explain
formal bias, CTT uses the idea of ‘underdetermination’ to suggests that conflicting interests of
relevant social groups determines the choice and configuration of technology. Over time, the
preferred choice becomes the standard, setting limit and opportunities to users (Swann, 2010;
Feenberg, 2008). As such, complex, interacting social factors of politics, cultural norms, user
agency, daily practices, as well as technical and economic limitations, determines technological
paths. The concept of ‘technical code’ can uncover these dominant values and beliefs, forming
the unexamined assumptions designed into technology (Flanagin, Farinola, & Metzger, 2000).
Technical codes are the social, economic, cultural factors that provide the foundation of
technological designs among alternatives (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013). Although the
technological design may seem inconsequential, it demands specific social (re)orders and
hegemonic control that guides against its misuse (Schelly, 2017; Winner, 1986). When
examined, these configurations and use of technologies reveal subtle assumptions and values.
This cultural cue becomes apparent when one observes the differences in configurations of
technologies across cultures, showing different priorities and hegemonic issues (Flanagin,
Farinola, & Metzger, 2000). Policies and laws preserve technical codes formally, while user
demands provide fewer formal supports (Flanagin, Farinola, & Metzger, 2000). In the case of the
internet, its information-sharing ability opens up its designs to agencies, several forces have to
thwart its openness by using legal means to protect children and copyright from its
vulnerabilities (Flanagin, Flanagin, & Flanagin, 2010). By examining the forms, use, and policies
surrounding technologies, the technical codes of material artifacts unveil the relationships
between social priorities and mechanical designs (Flanagin, Farinola, & Metzger, 2000).
Feenberg believes oppressed groups can challenge dominant ideologies in technical codes
11
through active intervention in the design and redesign processes, a process Feenberg called
“democratic rationalization”.
Democratic rationalization uses Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory to conceptualize
power struggles in the network relationships between technology and society (Grimes &
Feenberg, 2013). The power struggle is seen in its dimensions of limited resources, access to the
decision-making process, legitimatization and knowledge used for mobilization and enacting
change (Hekkala & Urquhart, 2013; Hardy & Leiba-O'Sullivan, 1998). The bias of technology
use and design produces unforeseen consequences that motivate indifferent victims to challenge
the problems and acquire power over technological control and development (Grimes &
Feenberg, 2013). In the case of the internet, innovations such as the creative commons copyright
licensing emerge to take continuously use the decentralized, innovative, collaborative, and
empowering structures of the internet. This dynamic process reveals the social nature of
technology (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013) and increases public participation in its adoption (Bos,
2008). However, the fate of the technology is ultimately determined by public acceptance as they
deal with it in their relation to others and everyday practices (Grimes & Feenberg, 2013; Belu,
2005).
Humans make a technological choice through interaction with different user groups
with varying needs and values. Critical Theory of Technology draws our attention to the
alternative options in the means-end systems. It suggests that technologies are not ordinary tools
but are influenced by people with their interests and may be under social pressure (Paredis,
2011). To Feenberg, the values embodied in technical frameworks and the ethical implications of
12
technology choices can enable a more democratic control of the decisions we make, which in
turn challenges the autonomy and neutrality of technology.
13
Research Design
My research followed the qualitative case study approach. Case study research allows in-
depth data collection and detailed analysis of an issue within a bounded system (Creswell, 2013).
It enables a multi-lens and multi-facets approach to conceptualization a complex phenomenon
(Gerring, 2004) while considering its context (Baxter & Jack, 2008).
Research aim, questions, and positionality.
My research assessed the impact of waste collection technologies on the exclusion of
bottle pickers in Calgary. I examine the history, similarity, contradiction, and perception of solid
waste collection technologies to uncover their social and political context and implications. To
achieve this, I asked the following questions.
1. What are the residential waste collection technologies adopted in Calgary? Why are they
adopted?
2. How do these technologies enable and change with shifting spatial, social, economic, and
environmental relations within the city?
3. What impact do the adopted technologies have on bottle pickers’ access and interaction
with the city and its resources? How have they responded?
My first and second research questions aim to identify the socio-technical system that has
developed around household waste and bottle recycling in Calgary. With them, I analyzed the
fundamental principles guiding each actor’s selection of technologies used, and how these have
changed over time. My third research question focuses on how pickers perceive and respond to
14
these technologies. My purpose is to explore how the use of waste collection technologies is
associated with competing values around waste and in Calgary.
I am interested in the inclusion of informal waste pickers in all aspects of waste
management because of my background and passion for inclusive city development. I was born
and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, before moving to Calgary in 2017, and my family livelihood has
depended on an informal or unregistered milling business for more than thirty years. Although
we struggle to make ends meet, we survive amidst the poor infrastructure and support that made
us more vulnerable to hazards of noise and fume exposure. As such, I strongly oppose the
criminalization of informal activities without providing alternatives or the necessary support for
them to solve their problems. I also believe the instrumental ideology of sustainable technology
has given little attention to the power issues in the adoption of modern waste collection
technologies, often framed as environmentally friendly.
My background, interest, and identity as a black, heterosexual, male student affect my
data collection, analysis, and interpretation processes (Bourke, 2014). My positionality allowed
better access to my interviewees, who were mostly male and pickers. However, it also limits my
field observation. In the next section, I explained the implication of my positionality on my
research and the relationship between pickers and depots employees. By gathering data using
multiple methods and from various sources, discussed below in the data collection section, I used
the data source triangulation strategy (Patton, 1999) to minimize the potential biasness of my
data. My research supervisor reviewed my data interpretation. Based on his feedback, I was also
able to mitigate the risk. Patton calls this collaborative evaluation approach “analyst
triangulation.”
15
The case study area—Calgary.
Calgary’s location and waste management approach present an example in the global north
for me to use what has been criticized as the lens used by the global north to read the global south,
the informal economy. Calgary is a city in southern Alberta (Figure 1) with an estimated population
of 1,246,337, a growth rate of 0.9%, and an unemployment rate of 8.8% (The City of Calgary, 2017).
The City of Calgary, a municipal government, here referred to as “the City”, operates a
residential recycling program for its jurisdiction. In 1991, the City of Calgary adopted a drop-off
collection program after a residential recycling pilot program compared to the blue-box and
drop-off container system. In 1992, the collection of newspapers, glass, and metal cans started at
seven recycling Drop-off Depots. By 2004, the City tested the curbside collection of residential
recyclables. By 2009, the City adopted and provided the blue cart recycling program to about
300,000 homes. During this time, the community depot recycling program also expanded
throughout Calgary, which numbers about 50 depots today. In 2010, the City launched its Black
Cart garbage collection service and automated it in 2011.
Today, the City operates an automated waste and recycling collection system using its
blue, green, and black carts. At the same time, it continues to advocate for the adoption of the
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) recycling policy at the provincial level (Sebastian,
Personal interview, 2019). The City waste bylaws also mandate waste recycling across all
sectors, but prohibits “scavenging” from and around its bins, with fines ranging from $125 to
$1000 (The City of Calgary, 2017; The City of Calgary, 2016). Despite this exclusionary policy,
Bender (2010) reported that about 1,000 informal bottle pickers operate in Calgary using shopping
16
carts, bikes, or bags, with some having "clients" who give them recyclables for a light clean-up
around their property.
Based on the degree of labor and tools employed in picking recyclables, Bender categorize
various informal recyclers in Calgary as;
1. The cherry or layer pickers: These are short-term or new recyclers that target bottles
outside or on bins.
2. The Veterans or prospectors: These are long term pickers, have a grizzled appearance,
and often criticized cherry pickers for not putting more effort into their picking or
picking inside the bin.
3. Weekend warriors: These recyclers bin using automobiles. Other pickers consider
them as less in-need of the recyclables.
4. Shopping carts and bikes users.
5. Bags users that tie and carry their bags of bottles on their shoulders like saddlebags.
Bender’s report explained the complex social norms, power relations, and hierarchies
creating the social economy of informal recyclers in Calgary. However, its focus on the socio-
economic interpretation of binners’ work provided less social and political meaning to their
technology and the City’s adoption of the curbside program. By trying to categorize pickers
based on “the aids they use” (p. 7), Bender provided an instrumental interpretation of their
technology, treating it as an ordinary means of collecting recyclables. In an attempt to describe
the impact of the City’s residential recycling program on pickers access to recyclables, Bender
framed informal recyclers as victims emphasizing that the blue bin and fine attached have
produced an area of confrontation between residents, Bylaw officers, and binners. In the next
17
two sections, I interpret bottle picking in Calgary as a complex and contested relation and discuss
four themes that help clarify the implications of instrumental thoughts about waste collection
technologies.
18
Figure 1: Map of the study area (Calgary).
19
Data collection.
My research data are from both primary and secondary sources. My primary source of
data includes semi-structured interviews and observation. I combined this with documents from
relevant organizations as my secondary source of data. These documents include reports, official
webpage posts, letters, and images, and news archives.
Interview and observation.
I did one-on-one interviews with twenty-nine people: these included twenty-three bottle
pickers and others that identified as a non-picker, including residents; and staff of the City of
Calgary, Calgary Can, and depot centers. Except for my interview with Liam, employee of the
City of Calgary, which lasted for about one hour, other interviews were about twenty minutes
long. I have included a demographic table of individual respondents and the length of their
interview in Appendix A. During my interviews, between January and April 2019, I used a semi-
structured interview guide, Appendix B, to enable a flexible, in-depth but directed discussion
with my interviewees.
I combined purposive and snowball sampling techniques to recruit my respondents and
ensure that the information gathered from them is theoretically meaningful to my research
questions. Getting bottle pickers was challenging at first. I was very reluctant to approach them
on the street to avoid confrontations. Yet, no public shelters accepted to introduce me to them,
citing Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act restrictions on disclosure of
personal information. I expressed the difficulty I was facing to Mason (Pseudonymized), a
manager of a depot center. Mason told me to hang around his center, and he introduced me to
pickers he identified as “friendly and should be willing to talk to you.” The pickers, mostly
20
males, were eager to participate as Mason introduced me as a student seeking their views on
waste management in Calgary. With subsequent visits to the center, I became a known face who
needs no introduction. To be inclusive, I approached and interviewed seven other female bottle
pickers that visited the center. Also, at the center, I interviewed three other persons that identified
themselves as non-picker residents and homeowners.
I contacted other key informants directly by email and visit to their offices between
October 2018 and April 2019. I supported this with follow up calls, emails, or visits to
informants that did not respond to my initial request. For those who agreed to participate, we
scheduled the interview at public spaces based on their convenience and preference. For others
that did not respond to the request by March 2019, I removed them from the list of potential key
informants.
Before each interview, I introduced myself as a master's student from the University of
Calgary. I gave an overview of my research and its objectives. I informed my key informants that
they have a right to withdraw from the conversation at any time, but I will use data gathered
before their withdrawal. All key informants provided their informed consent in writing and audio
formats. I have pseudonymized all the names given to protect their identity and livelihoods. All
interviews were first transcribed verbatim and then edited for clarity in a written style while
preserving some emotions and gestures that provide more contextual meaning to their answers.
I also observed the interaction and events occurring while I was visiting different bottle
centers and conducting my interviews. This observation gave me a social context to my data and
provided a rich explanation of the relationship between pickers and others. For my field
observation protocol, please see Appendix C.
21
Secondary documents- Reports, images, and news archives.
I used documents from relevant organizations, including the City of Calgary, Calgary
Can, the Province of Alberta, and the Beverage Container Management Board. These documents
include reports, residential complaints, web and blog posts, images, and videos. Some of these
documents were readily available online. I also used the Wayback Machine, a digital archive of
the World Wide Web, to access old online reports and webpages.
Data from these sources were crucial for exploring and understanding the historical
dimension of my research, as well as verifying information provided during the interview. These
documents also served as an alternative source of information for organizations that I was unable
to interview. Some organizations rejected my interview request, and some never responded.
Data analysis.
I used thematic analysis as my data analysis framework. Thematic analysis is the coding
and classification of data into themes to identify and compare its similarities, relationships,
patterns, theoretical constructs, or guiding principles (Mills, Durepos, & Wiebe, 2010; Clarke &
Braun, 2017). I transcribed, coded, and analyzed all gathered data to identify primary themes and
patterns of perspectives and practices surrounding waste collection technologies and how these
contribute to the marginalization of bottle pickers in Calgary. My epistemological and theoretical
background guided my theme coding and development process.
22
Ethics.
I submitted my research for ethics approval to the Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics
Board (CFREB) at the University of Calgary. The application was approved in October 2018 and
renewed in September 2019.
23
Bottle Picking As A Complex And Contested Relation.
In this chapter I examined the social identities and relations formed around bottle picking
in Calgary. I argue that bottle picking in Calgary can be conceptualized as a fragmented
environmental activism, an informal activity, and a complex social identity. For most bottle
pickers, their role and relations encompass these framings as they redefine waste and ensure their
freedom and daily survival. On the other hand, others, non-bottle pickers often highlight their
economic incentives and simplify their complex social identities to belittle their environmental
narrative and reveal the privilege given to formal employment and the vulnerable nature of bottle
pickers in Calgary.
Bottle Picking As a Fragmented Environmental Activism.
Many bottle pickers conceptualized their picking as a collective, revolutionary and
action-oriented protest to poor recycling practices, increasing the amount of waste landfilled, but
also increasing their discrimination. For these pickers, they seek to reduce the size and
environmental footprint of landfills by redirecting recyclable beverage containers to bottle
depots, while ensuring a fair distribution of recoverable materials. However, my observation of
the relationship and partnership among pickers suggest that it is highly fragmented and directed
towards improving themselves and their livelihoods.
In an interview, Luca, a picker, describes his recycling role: "As long as it makes
everybody some money and it keeps the environment safe, mother nature. We are doing it for her
by not disposing garbage and bottles. She might as well do it for us, make us live a little longer.
Save the planet and be eco-friendly, green (Personal interview, 2019). In another interview,
Oliver, a picker, describes himself and other pickers as an environmentalist:
24
"Well, everything that is collected by myself and other pickers doesn't go into
the landfills. A lot of people, their empties are mixed with household garbage.
They don't separate it. Pop bottles, pop cans, beer cans, whatever, they just put
it in the garbage and then it goes to the landfill unfortunately… Have you ever
been to the landfill? It is huge. It is like [points hand to the roof of a nearby
high-rise building]. The pile of garbage is that high" (Personal interview,
2019).
In another interview with Chen, a picker, she describes herself as a recycling role-model:
"I try to be a good example for the kids. To show that I am picking bottles and
garbage as well. I am not doing it for the money but for the environment. Kids
are our future. If we are not picking up the garbage as well as the bottles and
cans, our planet is going to deteriorate, and things are going to get a lot
worse" (Personal interview, 2019).
During my interview with Chen, she also told me she had been arrested and fined seven
times for picking. Because she can't afford to pay her fines, she always gets house arrest and jail
for it. As we walked along the street, she saw a bottle drop from another picker's bag, picked it
up and hand it over to the picker. The other picker thanked her and walked away. She laughed
and said to me, "that is what it used to be about, helping. See, like that. That doesn't happen
anymore. If that was anybody else, he will wait for the bag to fall and take what fell out"
(Personal interview, 2019). She told me she would like to contribute her opinion to the City
waste bylaw, but "They don't listen to general people. I would like to, but I don't even count. I
am not even a person according to the laws of Calgary" (Personal interview, 2019). Supporting
25
this statement, Liam, the senior employee of the City, confirmed to me that no effort had been
made to engage or involve pickers in the making of City Waste bylaw or programs.
The unfair treatment of pickers in the development, adoption, and observation of the City
waste bylaw and programs brings forward broader issues of environmental injustice. Luca, Chen,
and Oliver's statements and actions portray a perceived higher material, social, and psychological
benefits of picking relative to its ergonomic, social and legal cost. It also indicates a belief in
cooperative actions and outcomes towards improving themselves and recycling in Calgary.
These beliefs link between personal and collective efficacies, which support environmental
activism as a collective action (Lubell & Vedlitz, 2006; Lubell, 2002) and allow co-production of
waste and recycling services (Patrik, et al., 2018).
The collective efforts of pickers exist as a fragmented social partnership and support
system used to improve themselves and their picking. An excellent example of this partnership
was the one I observed between two bottle pickers, Donald and Sean. During my interview with
Donald, he attributed his worst recovery to a broken leg injury he got while picking. For Donald
to survive, he collaborated with Sean. According to the stories they shared, they met on the street
one night, and Sean realized Donald's recovery was small. So, he took him along his route and
gave him money from the cash recovered. On the day I met them, Donald was also working with
Sean because his injury lowered his recovery pace and income.
The relationship between Sean and Donald is the social partnership and support system
that exists between some pickers and non-pickers who occasionally donate bottles and cash to
pickers. The social support system is critical to the social identity of pickers, which Donald
describes as the picker family. The picker family in Calgary is not a cohesive whole as research
26
in other places have suggested (Medina, 2005; Tirado-Soto & Zamberlan, 2013; Navarrete-
Hernandez & Navarrete-Hernandez, 2018); instead, it is highly uneven as bottle picking overlap
other social identities and has become more competitive over time. For pickers who identify with
one picker group or another, they also suggest it offers social protection, enhancing their capacity
to manage their occupational risks, including injuries, strains, illness, stress, and harassment. The
picker family provides a platform for collaborative efforts and information sharing among
pickers.
"I call it treasure hunting": Bottle picking as an informal activity.
Bottle picking in Calgary can be conceptualized as an informal activity because it is an
unregistered and untaxed source of income. This employment dimension of waste picking,
discussed here, has been shown in previous research. This section differs from others by
critiquing this amorphous conceptual connection between employment and informal waste
picking.
The voluntary and flexible nature of bottle picking in Calgary stems from the bottle
recovery system adopted in the province of Alberta. Mandated by the Beverage Container
Recycling Regulation, the Beverage Container Management Board (BCMB) works with three
other partners, the Alberta Beer Container Corporation (ABCC), Alberta Beverage Container
Recycling Corporation (ABCRC), and the Alberta Bottle Depot Association (ABDA), to recover
used beverage containers in the province. Together, they operate an autonomous recovery system
designed for voluntary public participation. In the system, consumers get a cash refund of the
extra fee, deposit, paid when purchasing registered beverage drinks in the province. The deposit,
currently 10 cents for containers 1 litre or less and 25 cents for containers larger than 2 litres,
27
was conceived as an untaxed economic incentive for consumers to return their used bottles at any
Bottle Depot in Alberta rather than dumping it in the garbage.
Requiring little economic capital, the free entry and exit nature of the system, and the
refunds serve as a financial motivation for low- and zero-income earners in Calgary to pick and
transport used beverage containers from various communities and bins to depot centers. As such,
they are connected local and global chain of recycling, contributing to the redefinition of waste
from an unwanted material to a resource. For many pickers, the steady income from picking is
necessary for their daily survival, no matter the efforts required or the small or unpredictable
income from it. Picking income becomes more predictable over time as pickers gather more
knowledge and identify better location and timing to achieve higher recovery. William, a picker,
asserts: "I just learn over the years the systems, when people put their empties out…. I just learn
after thirty years. I know when they are going to put it out. People are creatures of habit. So, I
know the exact empties they are going to put out because they do the same thing all the time. So,
I just learned over time" (Personal interview, 2019).
William told me he started picking in 1978 and has combined it with many formal
employment positions. For William, the knowledge and experience gathered over the years
allowed him to target specific communities that generate more recoverables. Like many veteran
pickers I met, William's picking is not entirely flexible: it is limited to beverage containers. Still,
his high recovery gives him pride and self-fulfillment: "I just did it for something to do when I
was homeless. But now I have been doing for so long, I call it treasure hunting. I kind of enjoy
doing it. It is a habit now… So, I call it treasure hunting, not bottle picking because I get
everything. I don't just look for empties [laughs]" (Personal interview, 2019).
28
On the other hand, Myles, who had only been picking for two and a half years at the time
of his interview expressed dissatisfaction with his recovery and the importance of experience in
bottle picking:
"We don't get much. It is sort of a crap show. Sometimes, you end up getting a
lot, and you can learn more and more as you go along how to maximize your
haul. But often it can be related to factors that you have no control over.
Sometimes it is just luck. Sometimes it is just timing, which is something you
can plan. Today, I had a much better haul than I would have expected. But I
just came across more bottles than I would have normally. I think I just lucked
out the timing. I'm sure of it" (Personal Interview, 2019).
Bottle picking is a rational informal economic choice for the daily survival of many
pickers in Calgary, but the difference between William’s and Myles’s statements weakens the
notion that the activity is completely chaotic or that it needs cooperatives or formalization to
organize it (Colombijn & Morbidini, 2017; Tirado-Soto & Zamberlan, 2013; Navarrete-
Hernandez & Navarrete-Hernandez, 2018; Medina, 2005). The nature of the provincial recovery
system itself, being voluntary for the public, presents partial flexibility to pickers. For many
pickers, this limited flexibility is comprised of the autonomy of work that is significantly
different from the rigid, and sometimes precarious nature of their previous or potential formal
employment. This freedom does not ultimately mean unstructured working hours and patterns
because a high level of planning and skills are required for pickers to improve their income. The
independence of pickers also offers no protection as they are left vulnerable to the harsh
conditions of their activities.
29
"It is a strange sense of belonging": Bottle Picking as a complex social identity and
relations.
If picking can be conceptualized as fragmented environmental activism and informal
activity, it can also be interrogated as a social and relational identity. Pickers achieve pride and
self-esteem by categorizing and comparing their work with two other groups of Calgarians,
people without "earned income" and those working in the formal employment sector but
improperly recycling. Many pickers create a complex social identity for the picker family by
consciously adopting other social identities that transcend their multiple roles and relations.
Lastly, the complexity surrounding picking creates identity conflict and prejudice experienced by
pickers in their daily struggle for recyclables and social recognition. These points illustrate the
high vulnerability of bottle pickers in Calgary and support the argument that negative stereotypes
impede social interactions and inclusion (Samson, 2008; Inbaraj & Elangovan, 2016).
To maintain a positive picking identity, pickers categorize and compare their work with
other similarly marginalized and more powerful elite groups in Calgary. For these pickers, they
are concerned about the stereotypical misinterpretation of picking as vagrancy, idleness, etc. For
many pickers, this means differentiating their picking role from other marginalized groups
without "earned income". They also attribute their social prejudice to an ignorance of the
individual and collective contributions of pickers in waste management. In a personal interview,
Jack, a picker and board member of Calgary Can, expressed these concerns while describing the
varying support that pickers receive from residents:
"It varies from person to person. Some people appreciate what they do, and
some don't. It is because of the same things. Personally, it is pretty tedious.
30
Look at the amount of stuff that they are taking out of the landfills. They are
not making much, but at least they are doing something. I am a firm believer
of making my own money. I would rather work for four hours, bottle picking,
and make twenty bucks rather than stand on the corner and beg for it. Not that
I don't like the people who beg, especially here in Calgary, you can go out
bottle picking and make the same money" (Personal interview, 2019).
During my interview with Jack, he explained to me that pickers are often labeled as
homeless, drug addicts and thieves. He said he would like to break down the stereotype with his
role in Calgary Can and other planned initiatives. He noted that he never had issues with
residents because he is always very respectful to them. However, he said he moved out of
Calgary's Downtown area to stay far from discrimination and drugs.
In another interview with Ava, a picker, she suggests pickers and others are in dispute
over city outlook:
"People are very mean. People are mean! But there are a lot of wonderful
people too.…. I would like to see every picker to stop for three days just to see
what the City looks like and what impact that would have. I would love to see
pickers go on strike for three days, so society can see how much good that is
done" (Personal interview, 2019).
For Ava, picking is associated with homelessness: "It is a strange sense of belonging. I
belong to a category, not necessarily just picking. Picking is associated with homelessness. So,
for the first time in my life, I belong to something, the homeless category. It is not a good thing
31
to be proud of, but it is still something. For the first time, I belong to a group" (Personal
interview, 2019).
In another interview, Jackson identified himself as a homeless individual who picks for
his drug habits: "Because I was on the street, staying in the shelters, and I needed money. You
know? For your habits. Drug use and alcohol have a lot to do with it. You know, honestly, drug
and alcohol have a lot to do with it for sure" (Personal interview, 2019). Jackson also picks food
and other materials necessary for his survival: "Look, I found that today. That's frozen too. It is
ground chicken breast and it is frozen. Like I don't have to go to the shelter every night. I'll go to
a friend's place. I have a friend who lives up McKnight Boulevard. I'll stay there overnight. I'm
actually on assistance. Okay. I'd just leave the loaf of bread there. I found that anyway" (Personal
interview, 2019).
Jack and Ava's statements reflect how pickers use their picking identity to segregate and
compare themselves and the economic and environmental contributions of their work with other
groups in Calgary. This is necessary for pickers to maintain their self-esteem but reflects the
socioeconomic inequality in Calgary. It also activates stereotypes (Johnson, Schaller, & Mullen,
2000) and increases conflict between pickers and non-pickers, limiting the potentials of
socioeconomic mobility and interaction (Kraus, Park, & Tan, 2017). However, Ava, Jack and
Jackson's description of their multiple but overlapping roles, relationships, and social identities
suggest that picking as a social identity is highly fragmented and convoluted as many pickers
identify with other social groups outside of the picker family. This multiple social categorization
process creates a complex social character that increases the potentials of positive intergroup
32
relationships (Crisp & Hewstone, 2007; Kang & Bodenhausen, 2015; Prati, Crisp, Meleady, &
Rubini, 2016).
Jackson's conception of the relationship between bottle picking, homelessness and drug
abuse forms the dominant apprehensive view of bottle pickers in Calgary, and the complex
identities around bottle picking have produced a less cohesive picker group capable of resisting
the prejudice and lower social status and symbol associated with picking in Calgary. Instead, the
prevailing norm generates identity conflicts and behaviours for pickers and non-pickers
performing similar roles, bottle picking, attempting to manage their multiple roles, relationships,
and social identities. Jack's use of the word "they" to describe the contributions of pickers to
recycling in Calgary signals a conflict between his roles as a picker and board member of
Calgary Can. He resolved this conflict by using the word "they" to separate himself from other
pickers and highlight his more economically and socially powerful role as a representative of the
group. He then reconciles the potential suggestion of conflict between himself, pickers, and
panhandlers. Jones and Hynie (2017) conceptualized this accommodating and contextual
approach to managing relational conflicts between roles and social identities as reflection. As
benefits, Jack continues to seek collaboration with other corporate entities, continue his picking
in a very respectful manner to homeowners and residents, to increase his potential upward socio-
economic mobility. Ava integrated her role and relational identity as a picker and homeless
individual. This reconciliation approach (Jones & Hynie, 2017) reinforced the stereotypic
interpretation of bottle pickers as homeless individuals, can potentially increase the agonizing
relationship between pickers and residents, but allows positive collaboration with people in the
homeless group.
33
I also observed a combination of realignment and retreat strategies for managing identity
and relational conflict (Jones & Hynie, 2017) when I interviewed Nathan. During the interview,
Nathan repeatedly identifies as a non-picker. Later in the interview, he told me he lives in a
Downtown apartment and picks bottles occasionally around his apartment. When I asked Nathan
about his relationship with pickers, he said, "Nothing really. Just say hello when we see them,
and that is pretty much it…It is a small space. So, it is hard to get two people in there to talk. I
would assume that is probably the best thing" (Personal interview, 2019). Nathan's statements
suggest an attempt to completely disassociate himself from the poor social class and symbol of
the picking identity or any potential relationship it could create but realign with the resident
status that shows security and stability.
Other residents also communicated the fear that bottle picking represents a departure
from the social and economic norms of habitation and formal employment in Calgary.
Unwilling, or perhaps incapable, to grapple the complexity around bottle picking, they suggest
that pickers are motivated to pick because they are homeless, unemployed, and drug addicts. I
observed a very cordial relationship between pickers and employees at a bottle depot center.
During my interview with Sebastian, a manager at the center, he attributed the widely accepted
fear of pickers to their mental and social issues when I told him that pickers would not allow me
to observe their picking activity:
"A lot of them have substance abuse issues. So, they don't want to do that in
front of you. If you are following them, they can't drink. They can't do whatever
drugs they are into because they would feel uncomfortable in front of you.
Compounded with substance abuse, are mental issues. There is a reason they
34
are on the street usually. So, a lot of them are uncomfortable with relationship,
trusting people, and things like that. I think those are probably two big issues
why they won't want you to follow them" (Personal Interview, 2019).
When I asked pickers themselves, many of them consider me as an economic threat to
their recovery and livelihoods. Some said I can't walk at their pace and would slow them down.
Some said observing them would reveal the secret of recovery. Some gave me a street and time
to meet them, but never showed up. Others rejected my offer without offering any reasons.
The difference between Sebastian and some pickers explanation for my observation
rejection have implications for my research and the level of trust between them. The statements
and actions question the ethical commitment of my research. For pickers, the fact that I am black
and introduced myself as a student suggests that I am a financially insecure visible minority
member in Calgary. When combined with the fact that my research would be publicized, these
increase their anxiety as I could potentially increase their competition by directly picking or
revealing their secrets to others. On the other hand, these monetary reasons might seem
insignificant to Sebastian, who knows me as a graduate student, probably saw me drove a car to
the center multiple times to conduct my research and is aware of the high picking efforts and cost
compared to its potential refunds. Rather than the financial reasons, Sebastian's categorization of
pickers reinforces their common social representation and draws my attention to my safety and
security threats. These ultimately suggest some level of mistrust among them, portraying that
their relationship is polite and respectful as required for a pleasant business transaction. This
connection is necessary for pickers to successfully change their bottles for refunds and for the
depot to keep running. A rude picker could be turned down and sent out of the center. Bender
35
(2010) research also reported that a picker was banned from a depot after complaining about
bottle mis-count. At the same time, the number of customers visiting the center would
significantly reduce if pickers are treated poorly.
In my interview with Liam, he demonstrates the difficulty associated with grasping the
complexity around bottle picking by generalizing it to homelessness and unemployment:
"You probably have to look at this one from a more holistic perspective. In
terms of the programs the City is rolling out and the province for that matter to
help people who are homeless and unemployed. That is kind of the root of the
issue. People are not bottle picking because it is their preferred profession.
They are doing it because of other issues. So, you have to dig into what are
levels of government doing to assist those core issues as opposed to picking.
Picking itself, broadly speaking, is not particularly a big deal" (Personal
interview, 2019).
For Liam, the ecological role of pickers is insignificant, unsafe, and replaceable if the
necessary carts for sorting and diversion of materials are provided and used correctly:
"Well, I think it is an indifferent thing. On one hand, if they get something out
of the black cart, then it gets recycled. But if they are picking out of the blue
cart, then it is already getting recycled. They are just recycling at the bottle
depot instead of the recycling facility. So, I don't think it is much of an impact"
(Personal interview, 2019).
36
Liam's statements reflect the socio-cultural context of his and the City's holistic and
technocentric ideology, which bypasses the economic enablement of bottle pickers and fixate on
eradicating homelessness and unemployment in Calgary. This atomistic approach and care
encourage the belief that bottle picking constitutes a social menace that must be eradicated like a
disease rather than encouraged. The problematic nature of this approach is its failure to address
the marginalization of bottle pickers but constitute a border politics of promoting it alongside
formal employment and private homeownership. Since the City and pickers are competing for
recyclables, and Calgary economy constraint continues, Liam's statements suggest that this
method of engaging pickers will likely continue, while WRS focus on improving and protecting
itself from its stronger competitors, private waste collection service providers. In the next
chapter, I situate Calgary’s new diversion program and technocentric ideology within its social,
economic and political processes to clarify the implications of instrumental thoughts about waste
collection technologies and show how Calgary’s new diversion program promotes formal
employment, private homeownership and the marginalization of bottle pickers.
37
The Social Life Of Waste Collection Technologies In Calgary.
Throughout this chapter, four themes emerge that help clarify the implications of
instrumental thoughts about waste collection technologies. First, aside from protecting the
environment and public health, the origin and assumptions surrounding Calgary’s new waste
diversion program also extracts economic value from the crisis of increasing waste. Second, the
diversion program allows the City of Calgary, in collaboration with large corporate entities, to
exploit labor and enclose waste for capital accumulation. Third, this exploitation protects the
dominant societal values of private homeownership and consumer goods. Fourth, together, these
practices create uneven economic, power, and social relations that contribute to the
marginalization of bottle pickers in Calgary.
The origin and City’s justification of Calgary’s new curbside program.
In this section, I explain the origin and assumptions surrounding the new curbside
program adopted by the City of Calgary. First, I link the program to an increasing cost of landfill.
Second, I argue that the adoption of the program points to the City’s view that particular waste
has an economic value, that the new program should focus on diverting these waste from
households to recycling markets, and by doing this, the program will help minimize waste going
to landfills and its environmental impacts. These suggest that the City hopes to encourage
Calgarians to consume more products that generates recyclable waste, and not reduce waste, and
the success of the program relies heavily on the recycling market to accept these materials
collected.
In 1982, Alberta’s Ministry of Environment reported that there were seven active and six
inactive waste disposal sites in Calgary (MacLaren Plansearch Lavalin, 1982). According to the
38
report, the City owned all the inactive sites and four active sites. Two of the City active sites
were rated highly problematic due to their potential water supply contamination, nearness to
development, fragile nature of their soil, and other environmental problems. By 1996, the
management of waste and landfills had became more stringent as the provincial waste regulation
moved from the Public Health Act to the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act
(Alberta Environment and Parks, 2016). The former focused on protecting public health by
prohibiting littering and ensuring waste is collected and transported properly. With this, the City
mandated household use of bags and bins for their waste storage, while it transitioned to
containerized means of transporting waste to landfills. The new Act extended these requirements
by introducing stringent rules towards landfill construction, operation, and closure to minimize
its environmental impacts. With the new Act, landfills became highly expensive as City turned to
better engineering methods. By 2002, the City of Calgary had only three landfills in operation.
Around the same time, the City realized the need to reduce waste disposal to extend the lifetime
and capacity of its remaining landfills. Between 2009 and 2017, the City introduced the blue,
black, and green curbside carts.
In a personal interview with me, Liam, a senior employee of the City, rationalized the
City waste curbside technologies as a means of eliminating waste disposal: "It is waste diversion.
Our primary goal is to move the City towards zero waste. That is our long-term goal. It is all
about diverting stuff from landfills. We want to keep stuff from the landfill that shouldn't be
going to landfill in a nutshell.". For Liam, the programs are modern and environmentally friendly
ways of managing waste and landfills:
39
"It is immensely. You have to say, eighty or ninety percent of stuff that doesn't
need to go to the landfill, doesn't go to the landfill anymore. So, it is actually
saving space in landfills, and you don't want to have chemicals sitting in
landfills. ... You don't want battery acids and chemicals that can cause fires
and explosions. We have to watch for that here too because battery acids
mixed with any other stuffs can cause reactions. So, they don't want any of that
stuff in the landfills.… In the old days, they just put everything in the landfills.
So, you don't know what is in the old landfills. Now, only the garbage gets into
the landfills. Everything else can be reused. Plastics that are not worth money
can still be used to make lots of things like tables, chairs, and benches. You
can make anything with that."
When I asked Liam about the nature of changes in recycling and how the City had
responded to it, he revealed the simplistic assumption behind the City’s technocratic approach
and its failure to completely address the social dimension of the circular economy of waste
(Garcia, Carpio-Aguilar, & Bressers, 2018; Morseletto, 2020) it seeks:
"The biggest change when it comes to recycling specifically is the change in
dynamics of what is in the waste stream generally because with all these
technologies people are using like paper, and at the same time plastic bottles
and aluminum cans are getting thinner. So, what makes up a ton of recycling
today versus twenty years ago is very different. So that is the biggest change in
recycling, and that is something being felt everywhere….. As time goes on, new
technologies come on board that allows recycling of what you cannot recycle
40
in the past. At the same time, new products are currently developed that aren't
recyclable. So, we have to stay on top of those because every few years some
things come up as being popular and it is garbage. So, we have to change our
communication materials all the time to reflect a change in markets."
By suggesting that some plastics are not worth money, Liam tries to downplay the
economic incentives of the City in recycling. The City itself doesn't recycle plastics into new
materials but sells them to interested buyers. Liam’s comparison of "garbage" and "recyclable"
or non-garbage in Calgary's waste stream illustrates an economic value placed on the quality of
waste, which differentiates waste as a problem from waste as a resource. In its most
straightforward meaning, garbage is a problematic waste with no market value, while recyclables
have a market value. This suggests that curbside waste technologies play a significant role in the
marketization of waste. The fact that City curbside service was a response to the growth of the
recycling market, particularly with increasing demand for cheap raw materials in Asian countries
(Yoshida, 2005), supports this argument. Later in his interview, Liam describes the destination of
recyclables recovered by the City as "the Golden market."
Liam's statement about "zero waste" and eighty or ninety percent waste diversion rate
points to the City's technoscientific view of waste management, by which it quantifies issues of
waste material and generation. This approach allows City to present itself and its programs as
unbiased and rational, obscuring the social and technical complexities surrounding its means-end
relationship. Liam overstated the current diversion rate of the City curbside program to provide
more support for their new environmental management strategy. Over time the City has revised
its diversion goals from eighty percent by 2020 to seventy percent by 2025.
41
In sum, City adoption of waste curbside carts reflects a technocentric approach (Townley,
2008; Feenberg, 2008) focused on extending the lifespan of its landfills rather than reducing the
amount of waste generated. Its disparaging of landfills illustrates a costly technical attempt to
minimize the environmental impact of landfills. This is accompanied by a glorification of its new
curbside bins as a means of redirecting recyclable waste from households to markets. Producing
a rational and "unbiased" environmentalism, this environmental management narrative and its
technocentric approach seek to exploit waste while marginally addressing the unethical and
unsustainable consumption creating it (Gutberlet, 2011). In the next two sections, I discuss how
City’s new diversion program and technologies constitute political, economic, and social
reorganizations to reveal its prejudice.
The role of City’s waste collection technologies in economic (dis)empowerment.
Here, I elaborate on the political-economic restructurings taking place within Calgary’s
residential waste collection “industry” and explain how those restructurings economically
disempower informal waste pickers and less powerful waste collection laborers of Calgary’s
Waste and Recycling Services (WRS). These are necessary to understand the politics of
technological automation in waste collection, WRS current model of public-private partnership,
and the counter-hegemonic responses from bottle pickers and Calgary Can (a local non-profit
organization).
WRS pursues efficiency through automation, a social and material process through which
WRS senior officials use technology to dominate and exploit WRS waste collection crews,
rearrange waste service production while preserving themselves and their roles. Feenberg (2005)
conceives this process as operational autonomy, which protects WRS senior leaders from the
42
consequences of their technical action and allows them to reproduce their supremacy in pursuit
of efficiency through technology. Before the automation of City waste collection trucks and the
introduction of waste curbside carts, WRS (2006) described the role and achievement of its
residential collection crews in its report:
"Civic hand collection crews collect residential waste on a fixed-day scheduled
from Tuesday through Friday of each week throughout the year excepting
Christmas Day and New Year's Day. In 2006, our civic hand collection crews
travelled 1,535,000 kilometers and collected 217,000 tonnes of solid waste (an
increase of 1.4 percent from 2005."
In our meeting, Liam rationalized the new service production using automated waste
trucks and curbside carts as economically efficient:
"Well, when it comes to the collection itself, we are fully automated….. One
driver truck collecting everything…. The technologies didn't exist in the past.
So, it is new technologies. It is more environmentally friendly, for sure. It is
more economic. There is a time each garbage truck had three people, three
bodies onboard, and now you have one, occasionally two, depending. So, it is
better than always."
Beneath Liam's explanation of City automated waste trucks, the profiling of WRS
collection crews and the economic quantification of their productivity is a deliberate attempt to
frame their roles as repetitive and physical, concealing the mental and social connections of
waste collection crews in their work, among themselves and residents they serve. This framing
illustrates a deep commodity fetishism, which places economic value above intersubjectivity and
43
intrinsic values of people (Daremas, 2018) and allows WRS leaders to treat their waged garbage
collectors as a labor-power replaceable with autonomous waste collection trucks. This thought is
evident in the current production of WRS collection services, which contradicts the idea of full
automation, as Liam suggested.
In its current state, WRS waste collection trucks are side-loading automated trucks with a
small hydraulic lifting arm operated by the driver while in the truck (Figure 2). Rather than
complete automation, it is an integrated mechanized production process by which WRS retains
the manual labor of its truck drivers because it is currently unreplaceable with machines or
economically inefficient as a project for WRS. At the minimum, the one-person WRS waste
truck driver is an isolated and exploited individual that combines his driving role with the work
of waste loaders by carefully controlling the truck mechanical arm to hook and lift the City waste
carts, tip its materials into the truck, and place the container back to its position. A rear-loading
"automated" waste truck also requires humans to control its hydraulic arm, and this would
improve the ergonomics associated with the lifting of waste bins, as many researchers have
suggested. However, this alternative configuration would reduce WRS economic productivity
because it would need an extra worker(s) or time to push WRS carts from the designated house
to the back of the truck and clip the bin to its mechanical arm. With little or no control over their
fate, WRS senior leadership has replaced many garbage or civic hand collection crews with the
side-loading hydraulic arm. In the future, a driverless waste truck, already undergoing testing in
Sweden (McFarland, 2017), could potentially replace all the waste truck drivers. Like Marx,
Feenberg conceives this mechanization of labor and production as the domination of work
inherent within the capitalist system.
44
Figure 2: A WRS waste truck driver picking up the black bin. Photo credit: Robson Fletcher,
CBC News.
Although WRS appears to be a public-sector entity on the surface, its waste collection
technologies also assist in the enclosure of waste(resources) for capital accumulation by
dispossession (Harvey, 2004). As a public entity, WRS has an exclusive right to provide private
residential waste collection services in Calgary. The City waste bylaw protects this right. WRS
collects and transports blue bin recyclables to the Cascade Recovery recycling facility for
processing and export to the recycling market, and materials from its green bins to the City
composting facility. The composting facility was designed and built by Chinook Resource
Management Group (CRMG), a consortium of large private entities. Today, AIM Environmental
Group, a member of CRMG, operates the City composting facility. By collaborating with WRS,
45
these organizations inherit WRS’ exclusive rights to waste, and essentially deprive others,
including pickers, from accessing its resources.
WRS argues that its comprehensive program and the revenue generated from the sale of
these resources allow it to achieve lower cost and higher participation and diversion rate.
However, from 2008 to 2019, WRS monthly waste charges increased from less than $10 to
$24.30 as it transitions from a property-tax funding model to a user-fee funding model. When the
blue cart program experienced a fallback in 2017 due to market constraints, WRS spent $530,000
to store and later landfill clamshells. To keep the program running, WRS downplayed the impact
of the market crisis, emphasize the overall environmental benefit of its programs, and justified
the financial cost of the crisis as $1.40 per blue cart household.
Beyond mere tools driving efficiencies, WRS waste collection technologies exemplify
spaces of capital accumulation for large corporate entities, with revenue from the recycling
market playing an increasing role in the effectiveness of waste collection technologies. This
collaboration is the new neoliberal model of public service through a public-private partnership
often justified as reducing cost and improving efficiencies (Hall, 2013). However, the increasing
user fees, transfer of the financial cost of the recycling market crisis to residents, and the
reconsideration of landfills indicate the shield that capitalist entities construct in the process of
forming and maintaining this alliance. These realities undermine the protection of public interest
in a public-private partnership.
While service users clamor for flexible fees, processes of waste enclosure have generated
two forms of resistance. First, Calgary Can introduced a Binner's Hook (figure 1) for residents to
hang their refundable and reusable materials rather than dropping it in the City bins. Calgary Can
46
pilot the hook in collaboration with the Binner's project and Coop Les Valoristes, other non-
profit organizations in Vancouver and Montreal, to allow pickers to have continuous access to
the materials on the hook. Secondly, some bottle pickers resist the City waste bylaw restricting
them from the bins. They openly or discretely pick because they believe some residents do not
recycle properly, and it is cleaner and more comfortable for them to pick from the blue cart.
Figure 3: Calgary Can Binner’s Hook. Photo credit: Dare Adeyemi.
There is a growing politics to transfer all the public wealth of WRS to private entities
under the disguise of austerity. WRS technical practices reveal that its internal and external
conflicts increase as competitive waste management market and economic constraints force
senior management to appear innovative and cost-efficient, ultimately empowering themselves in
collaboration with their capitalist associates while marginalizing bottle pickers and their less
47
powerful waste collection laborers. This material process of neoliberalism (Harvey, 2005; Klein,
2007) supports Feenberg’s (2005) argument that the increasing introduction of the exploitative
capitalist system to the public sector represents the final stage of operational autonomy.
Social norms in Calgary’s new curbside program.
In this section, I explain how the societal norm of homeownership is buttressed in
Calgary’s waste management system. Both the Binner’s Hook and WRS’ carts reinforce a social
class hierarchy centered around employment relations and private homeownership. As both
Calgary Can and WRS provide convenient recycling means for private homeowners, they
privilege private property and consumerism as societal values in Calgary. To unveil this
privilege, I elaborate on how WRS services have focused on single-family homeowners in
Calgary, and how this group continues to use WRS carts to protect their status and interest in the
development and transformation of their community. These realities undermine the potential
success of the Binner’s Hook.
For a long time, WRS collection services and technologies have focused majorly on the
Single-Family (SF) residential sector in Calgary. This group represents about 316,000 residences
(up to four dwelling units), which generated only twenty-nine percent of landfilled waste in 2014
(The City of Calgary, 2015). They account for the highest number of dwellings in Calgary, are
mostly owner-occupied, and generally priced more than other dwelling units. As such, they
contribute a significant amount to the City's total revenue from property taxes. With less market
for recyclables, but a growing interest in recycling among the group (Federation of Canadian
Municipalities, 2002), the City, in 1992, offered community drop-off collection style for the
association of SFs interested in recycling and concerned about protecting their environment.
48
With this, WRS supplied multiple large steel bins for sorting and disposing their recyclables to
these communities. As this interest grew, alongside the recycling market and landfill cost, WRS'
increased its community depots and adopted a more aggressive approach, curbside collection
program, which fit better into the individualistic lifestyle of the SF, predominantly homeowners,
group. The blue, green and black carts are assigned to the homeowners and not residents.
Reinforced by the City Waste Bylaw, WRS carts have become exclusionary rights
promoting the private homeownership and discrimination of bottle pickers. To exert more power
on the transformation of their community, some private homeowners use the placement or use of
City carts as evidence for arguing against other household configuration and for preserving the
outlook of Calgary as a single-family, wealthy and modern metropolis. To prevent unauthorized
access to their bins, some homeowners use locks and chains on the lids of their carts, as shown in
Figure 3. For some of these private homeowners, other household configurations and use of the
City bins are misfits and eyesore to their social and economic interest and investment, their
house. In a letter written to City councils in 2018, Persia Pint, a SF homeowner, wrote:
"GARBAGE, you can tell which homes have suites because the garbage is
overflowing. There is one house in our back alley that has TWO BLACK BINS
and they are always overflowing with extra bags at the side of the bins, that of
course get torn apart, and now we garbage all over the lane. Very unsanitary,
a cause for vermin."
For this person, a mismatch between WRS curbside bins and other forms of households'
configuration is an invitation to the obnoxious and unwanted activities which denigrates the
values of private homeownership:
49
"When we bought our home 28 years ago, we moved into aneighborhood of
single families. Today, it has become a tenement of housings for families with
many showing no respect for the neighborhood…. In the meantime, us single
family homeowners take pride in our property making sure grass is cut, snow
is removed, etc."
Figure 4: Protecting private bins on private property: City carts under chain and lock. (Photo
credit: Tom Ross, 660 NEWS).
An examination of the image above (Figure 3) uncovers what many private homeowners
consider to be the vermin of their community. From the picture, the homeowner used locks and
chains to prevent unauthorized access to the blue and black bins, while the green bin is unlocked.
WRS green bins are for food waste, which is more likely to attract animals like squirrels and
rabbits, roaming freely in the area. On the other hand, the black and blue bin hold refundable
containers and other used materials that are more likely to attract bottle pickers. Although it is
50
illegal to pick from the bins in figure 3 because they are on private property, some bottle pickers
defy this rule. The pickers’ actions justify the owners’ use of chains and locks on the blue and
black carts. The unwanted vermin, as Persia mentioned in her letter, are also pickers whose
actions oppose the principles of private asset ownership, in this case, house and City carts.
Many pickers understand and have internalized the social dimension and misconstruction
of their activities and technologies, and it has increased the tension among them. Like what
Feenberg describes as the conflict between rationality and ideology, they often frame their tools
as the cheapest, easiest, or fastest means to pick or transport their materials when I asked them to
describe it. When I asked them about how it affects their interaction in Calgary, they reveal the
social dimension of these technologies. In a personal interview, Myles, a picker, justified the
exclusionary role of the City waste carts:
The thing is, I think it is a private property thing. I would like to have that right
for me, but I can see where people in residential neighborhoods don't want
bottle pickers sort of strolling through their blue box or walking unto their
property—stuff like that. Even if the blue box is off the property, waiting to be
picked up, I can appreciate why that law is in effect…. I just know they don't
want bottle pickers on their property. It is a bit like they don't want to attract
flies. We are flies. We are dirty and undesirable a bit. Take a look at this guy
(points to a cart pusher). Would you want that guy on your property or me?
Hahaha."
51
When I asked Myles about his tools, he replied: "Well, I got these durable plastic bags. I
don't use a cart. Some guys do. I'm not too crazy about pushing a cart around. I find the cart
slows me down anyway. But I can understand, it depends on the volume."
Myles justified and desired the exclusionary nature of City carts because he hopes that
such privilege would increase his recovery while resisting his fellow pickers. This shows how
moral values of private ownership of waste collection technologies can increase the tension and
competition between marginalized groups. His question about a cart-pusher puts me in an
awkward situation, which I quickly resolved by redirecting the focus of my interview to him by
saying, "well, you are properly dressed." The question and Myles' attempt to resolve the conflict
between his justification of shopping-carts, in terms of volume, and his framing of cart-pushing
as madness also point my attention to the social values and identity of "shopping-carts" and how
pickers receive and respond to the prejudice of homelessness by using this technology in
Calgary.
When Calgarians say a cart is a "shopping cart," they hold certain social and spatial
imaginaries about it. Mainly, they expect it to serve a single purpose: shopping in a formal, and
usually relatively large, commercial space. Neglecting its other potential purposes, including
transportation, shopping carts have become part of a lifestyle of mass consumption of consumer
goods. People often use it to haul bulky goods bought inside the shopping mall to their cars.
Although the City Traffic Bylaw allows pushing such carts on or along sidewalks without
interfering with other pedestrians, many residents expect shopping carts to be within the premise
of the shopping center alone. These social standards of the "shopping cart" are what Feenberg
(2005; 2002) describes as the cultural cue in technical code. Cart-pushing bottle pickers
52
challenge this social meaning of the "shopping cart" and are stereotyped as homeless individuals.
To avoid this framing, reduce the potential conflicts with residents, and differentiate their
activity from homelessness, some pickers use bags, bicycles, baby trolleys, or cars to collect and
transport their recyclables rather than a shopping cart.
To say that shopping-carts and WRS curbside carts are just carts is to ignore their
competing values and use among residents and bottle pickers. Both technologies protect the
dominant societal standards of private asset ownership and consumerism in Calgary, while the
activities of bottle pickers challenge these values. These struggles suggest that both technologies
play a significant role in daily practices around waste, as well as the perception, existence, and
exclusion of bottle pickers in Calgary.
53
Conclusion: Towards A Democratic Approach To City Waste Collection Technologies,
Programs, and Bylaw.
My research aims to generate an understanding of waste collection technologies as laden
with power and struggles for legitimacy. This analysis might support waste administrators to
develop a critical citizenship that will actively seek, engage, and empower pickers. To do so, the
design and use of waste collection technologies must be understood as embedded with subjective
and competition values, which result in politically charged decisions biased to privilege certain
groups or interests. This technologically mediated means of privileging certain groups reinforces
existing power relations in the society. By understanding the social and political nature of waste
collection technologies, users and researchers are better positioned to question the values
reflected or privileged by it. They are also positioned to better appreciate the possibilities of
democratically negotiating what values might foreground the design and adoption of future waste
collection technologies.
My study showed that the social relations of ownership and control over waste collection
technologies in Calgary reveal complex and contested values, norms, and privileges, which
create an unequal social, material, and technical relationship contributing to the exclusion of
bottle pickers and exploitation of labor and waste. Specifically, the City waste collection
technologies have contributed to the marketization and enclosure of waste, as well as the
mechanization of waste collection labor, while supporting private homeowners and continuous
consumption of "green" products. The City engaged in these activities in collaboration with large
corporate entities, whose interests are protected by the exclusionary nature of the City waste
bylaw that criminalized picking and allow WRS to operate as the only authorized provider of
54
waste collection services to single-family residents. These acts have generated resistance from a
third-sector organization, Calgary Can, through its hook program, and from pickers through their
collection technologies and continuous picking. The City conceals these complex and unequal
practices into a discussion of the material effect of waste on the environment, rationalizing its
curbside carts as a means of eliminating waste disposal.
The bias reflected in Calgary’s new waste diversion program does not suggest that
modern waste collection technologies are not beneficial. These technologies are very useful, and
significant efforts from waste administrators, engineers and researchers continue to make them
environmental-friendly and safe. However, they also serve the interest of the bureaucratic class
and private homeowners in Calgary. This exemplifies the political nature of modern waste
collection technologies according to critical views on technology. While the consequences on
bottle pickers and collection laborers may be unintentional, the systematic and ubiquitous nature
of its commercial and exclusionary motives renders its values invisible and thus unquestioned. A
better and more democratic approach towards City waste bylaw and programs will actively seek,
engage, and empower bottle pickers and WRS laborers. This engagement is necessary to
recognize the contributions of bottle pickers and foster a more inclusive waste management in
Calgary.
The themes that emerged from my research provides substantive evidence contrary to the
value-free notion of modern waste collection technologies seeking to protect the environment
and public health. They also emphasize that the debates and struggle for the recognition of
informal waste pickers must also account for the mediating role of waste technologies. This
evidence is not limited to debates in waste management; they also resonate and reinforce broader
55
urban socio-political and political-economic processes. These processes include how urban
geographies are produced and contested (Roy, 2003; Harvey, 2008), and the increased
neoliberalisation of urban governance (Fanelli, 2014; Clark, 2002).
I have used principles from Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology and a case study
approach to understand the impact of waste collection technologies on the exclusion of bottle
pickers in Calgary. Further research could consider how this plays out in other places. In places
where the adoption of modern waste collection technologies has failed, such a study might
explore social and political factors that contributed to their failure. My experience in Lagos
suggests that employment and city planning are highly influenced by social and political status
and connection (Fourchard, 2011; Gberevbie, Osibanjo, Adeniji, & Oludayo, 2014). It would be
interesting to know if waste administrators in Lagos will support replacing their affiliates with
something like a side-loading waste truck to increase their productivity, and the likely impact
such action will have their social and political relationships.
Another study could do similar research comparing two or more cities or rural
communities in developed or developing nations. Such a study might provide a deeper and cross-
cultural understanding of the system, action, and thoughts supporting existing waste collection
system and technologies. Other study can also leverage on principles of participatory approaches
to critically examine the impact of waste collection technologies. This approach will ideally
integrate various knowledge, perspective, and values from the design to the completion of the
research. Such study can reinforce the procedures and values of collaborative decision-making in
waste administrators, provide a more practical and reflexive approach to mitigate the negative
56
impact of new waste collection technologies, as well as increase the self-confidence and
innovativeness of informal waste pickers.
57
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Appendix A: Demographics of Interviewees.
I have extracted the below snapshot of socio-economic characteristics of my respondents
from their response.
Pseudonymized Name
Age Gender Picks bottles
Identifies as what?
Years of bottle
picking in Calgary
Length of Interview (minutes)
Myles - M Yes Bottle picker 2.5 22
Jackson 40s-50s M Yes Bottle picker 10 38
Janet and Connor
40s-50s F Yes Bottle picker 23 40
40s-50s M Yes Bottle picker 20
Noah 40s-50s M Yes Bottle picker 20 21
Liam - M No Senior employee of
the City
- 54
Lucas - M Yes Bottle picker 9 14
Oliver - M Yes Bottle picker 5 20
George (interpreted by
Jenn)
M (F) Yes Bottle picker - 39
Ethan 40s-50s M No Home owner and recycler
- 8
Grayson 60+ M Yes Bottle picker 37 12
Aiden 40s-50s M Yes Bottle picker 12 9
Hudson 60+ M Yes Bottle picker 10 18
Chen 40s-50s F Yes Bottle picker 47 19
Luca - M Yes Bottle picker 0.5 19
Colton - M Yes Bottle picker 1 10
Jocelyn and Nathan
- F No Residents and recycler
- 10
- M Yes -
Carter and Darlene
40s-50s M Yes Bottle picker 5 17
40s-50s F Yes Bottle picker
Donald and Sean
- M Yes Bottle picker 1 16
- M Yes Bottle picker 3
Emmett - F Yes Bottle picker - 1
Sebastian
M No Depot Manager
- 10
Leo 20s-40s F Yes Bottle picker 1 7
Ava 40s-50s F Yes Bottle picker 1 11
73
William - M Yes Picker and depot
employee
30 46
Jack - M Yes Picker and representative of CalgaryCan
7 19
Mason - M No Depot Manager
- 5
74
Appendix B: Interview Questions.
I used my research questions to generate interview questions guide for two categories of
respondents, recyclers and administrators as stated under below headings:
Recyclers Questions.
1. How would you describe your picking activities, extent and duration, partially or fully?
Why and when did you start picking? How has it changed overtime? What tools do you
use in your activities? What are the challenges you face in using these tools? How do they
affect your interaction in and with the city?
2. How would you describe your relationship with fellow pickers? Why? How has it changed
over the years? What impacts will unionizing or formalization have on your picking and
that of others? How would you describe your role, and others, in Calgary recycling and
waste management?
3. City Bylaw 20M2001- How does the Calgary waste management technologies, laws,
programs affect your activities? How and why are they adopted? How and why have they
changed overtime? How has it improved recycling and waste management in the city?
Who is making the decision? Do you play any role in it? How does the system, laws and
technologies impact your livelihood, access and interaction with (resources and
infrastructure) and within the city? How has this changed you and your activities and
tools?
4. What are the challenges you face in your activities? Why? How have they changed
overtime?
5. How would you describe the level of support you receive for your activities? What are
they? Why? Who provides them?
6. How can you and your activities be supported? What do you think should be done? Who
would best provide it? Why?
7. How can you be reached for a scheduled walking interview or another discussion related
to your activities? If no, why?
75
Relevant Organization Administrators Questions.
1. What role does your organization play in waste management and recycling in the city?
How, when, and why did it start? What tools do you use?
2. What are the solid waste collection (recycling) technologies, programs, and laws adopted
in the city of Calgary? When and why are they adopted? Does their design, arrangement,
and use justify their adoption?
3. How are the decisions made? What role have you or your organization played in these
decisions? How does the law impact you and your organization? Some community
recycling depots have closed, why?
4. City Bylaw 20M2001 prohibit “scavenging”. How and why was the law made? What
impacts have law made on solid waste management and recycling in the city? How does
this laws affect you and your organization?
5. There are people that partially or fully depend on recyclables for their survival in the city.
How would you describe them, their tools, and their activities? How would you describe
their role towards a sustainable Calgary (recycling and living)? How does their activities
impact yours? How does City Bylaw 20M2001 and Calgary waste management system
(technologies and laws) impact their recyclers’ livelihood, access and interaction within
and with the city and its resources? How have they responded?
6. What are the challenges you (or your organization) face in your activities? How these be
improved and you be supported? Who should support you? How would a change in
policies, waste management or others, improve you and your effort towards making
Calgary a sustainable city?
76
Appendix C: Field Observation Protocol
Project title: The Impact Of Solid Waste Collection Technologies On The Socio-Spatial
Exclusion Of Informal Waste Pickers.s
Part 1: General Information
Observer: Location:
Date: Start Time: End time:
Part 2: Observation notes
S/N Theme What you see (put time) What you think
01 Configuration of the location
02
Technologies (waste
collection and others)
available/used at the location.
Waste pickers at the location (numbers and interactions)
77
03
What is the number of waste
pickers present at the
location? What is the pattern
of flow to and from the
location? What is the duration
of their activities at the
location?
04
What are the waste pickers
doing and how are doing it?
What is the pattern of their
activities? Do they experience
any difficulty/challenges in
their activity?
05
What technologies are the
waste pickers using? How are
they using it? Do they
experience any
difficulty/challenges using it?
78
06
How are waste pickers
interacting with other waste
pickers? Do they interact and
give each other
support/feedback? Do they
face any difficulty in their
interactions?
07
How are waste pickers
interacting with/using other
technologies and facilities
present at the location? How
are they using it? Do they
experience any
difficulty/challenges using it?
08
How are waste pickers
interacting with others (non-
waste pickers) at the location?
Who are they? What are their
duties? Do they interact and
79
give each other
support/feedback?
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