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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Exclusion: A Case Study of Calgary (Unpublished master's thesis).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

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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?