60 Kilos from CHINTAN on Vimeo.

In a recent post here on thecityfix.com, Sudhir Gota documented the plight of ‘Transport Challenged People’ in Bangalore, India. In his piece, Sudhir explains how Indian transportation policy’s often myopic focus on car infrastructure can reduce the mobility (and thus the quality of life) of those unable to afford automobiles themselves.

Another example of the link between social justice and transport policy is the plight of Delhi’s ‘wastepickers’ – informal sector trash collectors that make their living collecting and sorting garbage. According to Bharati Chaturvedi, Director of Chintan, a community group that advocates for wastepicker rights, new transport policies in Delhi and other Indian cities have often favored the transportation needs of private automobile owners over those of the wastepickers.

While often unseen or overlooked, 1 out of every 100 Delhi residents earns a livelihood as a wastepicker. As a group, these informal garbage men and women collect over half of the city’s waste. But in a rapidly modernizing India, the wastepickers’ way of life is under constant threat. The video above highlights how wastepickers face daily harassment by the police and marginalization by the government, which has recently adopted new rules that favor private trash collection companies.

While film does not explicitly highlight it, transportation policy is another arena in which wastepicker rights are not being respected. Mobility is essential for these workers, who typically use cycle rickshaws to move from house to house and to haul their huge bags of garbage, which can exceed 60 kilos (approximately 130 lbs). But as private cars have begun to dominate Indian roads, the government has decided to ban bicycles and cycle rickshaws from many city streets. Ostensibly, these measures are designed to improve traffic flow, but they can be a death sentence for the wastepicker business model: without this affordable form of transportation, their ability to collect enough trash to make ends meet becomes even more difficult. According to Bharati, wastepickers caught using their cycle rickshaws in restricted areas can have their rides confiscated. The rickshaws are then cut in half, in order to permanently take them off the road!

Learn more about the ban on cycle rickshaws and efforts to reverse it.