1 Introduction

In 2014, the Indian government started the Swaach Bharat mission, with the innate goal of dealing with the massive waste problem plaguing India today. About 62 million tons of solid waste is generated in India annually [1, p. 4]. Waste generates climate change due to the high methane and carbon dioxide emissions, thereby contributing to the greenhouse effect, smog, and acidification [2, p. 839].

Waste poses significant risks to public health, the environment, and the climate. Despite this, India’s waste pickers play a crucial role in the informal economy, serving as the backbone of numerous waste management systems in urban areas. In Delhi alone, there are approximately 150,000–200,000 waste pickers who engage in the recycling collecting system at various stages of the waste disposal process [3]. There are formalized waste-pickers, who are employed by the municipality to collect the waste, and informal waste pickers, who rely on social networks to manage waste. They sell these materials to small-scale dealers, who then pass them on to wholesalers and eventually to recycling firms, facilitating the transformation of waste into reusable products [3, p. 298]. This practice enables waste pickers to sustain their livelihoods by managing free-floating waste.

In India, waste is more than a material. Typically, it has negative connotations associated with it. It is often associated along caste and class lines, with most waste pickers being women and those of a lower class. Waste picking is often considered an “unclean” job. As such, the occupation of waste picking is highly stigmatized, which has resulted in poor working conditions, low income, and a variety of health hazards in India [4]. However, waste pickers have been valuable to many cities in India, often providing informal avenues to reduce waste. For example, in Kerala, waste pickers’ contribution has been saving local governments nearly 14% of municipal spending, while also reducing landfill loads [1]. These contributions largely go unrecognized due to the social stigma attached to the profession [3]. As a result, most waste pickers suffer from poverty and poor living conditions, exposing them to numerous social and environmental injustices.

The situation was made worse when the COVID-19 pandemic hit India [5]. COVID-19 lockdowns prevented informal workers and waste pickers from working, exposing them to further precarity. Due to the social precarity already facing waste pickers in India, the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated this.

Due to the recent nature of the pandemic, not much literature has been collected in a systematic review on the topic of waste pickers during Covid, especially regarding the environmental injustices plaguing them. Waste picking poses a unique occupation to analyze due to the intersectional identities at play. As said previously, most waste pickers are women and members of lower castes and classes. These intersecting identities must be analyzed in conjunction with the injustices these communities face to truly understand how the pandemic impacted waste pickers in India. Thus, this study will seek to answer the following question: What injustices do female waste pickers face in the COVID-19 era in India?

This review will seek to collect the relevant literature and contribute to the field by analyzing it from an environmental justice (EJ) perspective using the three tenets approach: distributive, recognition, and procedural justice, arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated preexisting injustices that the waste picker community faced and created an immense burden on women, which is not discussed enough in academia or policymaking, underscoring the importance of highlighting female contributions and issues. Hence, this paper will utilize a feminist political ecology (FPE) perspective, to show the differentiation between female and male waste picker challenges, especially at the crux of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the end, this paper will seek to identify where gaps in the current literature lie in terms of environmental justice, encouraging further research on these topics.

2 Environmental justice and feminist political ecology

EJ and FPE are two fields specifically concerned with ecological and social processes with the goal of promoting equity. As such, these fields are situated uniquely to analyze the literature regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on female waste pickers. This section will provide a brief theoretical explanation of each of these frameworks (Table 1).

Table 1 Summary of findings from systemized literature review.
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To start, FPE emerged as a field in the 1990s, from political ecology, and is specifically concerned with the power relations entangled with intersectionality and ecological processes [7]. It is an interdisciplinary field that explores the intersections of gender, ecology, and politics. It critically examines how gender relations influence and are influenced by environmental issues, resource management, and ecological change. FPE seeks to challenge and transform the ways in which gender and the environment are understood and managed, advocating for more inclusive and equitable approaches to environmental issues by treating gender as a critical variable that determines the relationship between society and environment [8].

FPE is primarily concerned with the underlying structures that produce equitable or unequitable outcomes, where in contrast EJ is often linked to the outcomes. Environmental justice incorporates multiple dimensions, aligning with the principles of distributive, procedural, and recognition justice [9]. These dimensions offer diverse perspectives on justice, addressing political economy, political processes, and cultural aspects. Distributive justice, linked to the political economy dimension, centers on the equitable distribution of societal costs and benefits [10]. Procedural justice, part of the political dimension, emphasizes fair processes to enhance participation in decision-making [10]. Recognition justice, associated with the cultural dimension, extends beyond acknowledging specific groups, such as indigenous communities, by ensuring their full political rights [10]. These principles significantly influence the development of socio-ecological justices like environmental justice, climate justice, and energy justice. Using distributive, procedural, and recognition justice as a framework aids researchers in applying environmental justice.

The term “environmental justice” gained prominence in the 1980s during the Warren County protests, primarily associated with rectifying the inequitable distribution of environmental burdens and benefits [9, 11]. Over time, the concept expanded to consider the construction of these injustices, incorporating aspects of recognition justice. Procedural justice is integral to environmental justice, addressing how procedures contribute to inequitable distribution [12]. Although defining environmental justice proves challenging due to varying perspectives, environmental justice movements, rooted in civil rights and intertwined with social issues, persistently connect environmentalism with broader societal concerns.

Understanding the challenges faced by waste pickers during the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates a comprehensive framework that considers both the gendered dimensions of ecological processes and the principles of environmental justice. FPE and EJ provide crucial lenses to analyze the complexities of waste management, particularly the experiences of female waste pickers. This research is crucial in filling existing gaps, providing a nuanced understanding of the environmental and gendered dimensions of waste-picker issues during the pandemic and offering insights that can inform both academic discourse and policymaking.

3 Methodology

This paper uses a systemized literature review approach, taking components of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Literature Reviews (PRISMA). This method is used to report the findings and overlapping themes of large chunks of literature. It requires three steps: identification, screening for eligibility, and inclusion. In the first step, the author used a search term and searched multiple databases (Google Scholar, JSTOR, EBSCO, and ProQuest) to find all relevant articles pertaining to this topic. The search term was the following:

“Female” AND “waste pickers” OR “rag pickers” AND “India” AND “COVID-19” OR “corona” OR “ virus”

The term was developed to understand the sorts of literature regarding female waste-pickers, specific to India. The inclusion of “female” in the search term allows for the researchers to differentiate the gendered differences in waste-picking. The 248 articles were all inputted into Covidence, a data management software, and then Covidence removed 27 duplicates, meaning that the total number of studies moved into the second stage of PRISMA was 256.

In the screening for eligibility, there were two stages of screening. The first stage is the screening for titles and abstracts. In the titles and abstracts, articles were eliminated if they were not based in India, did not focus on waste pickers explicitly, or were written before 2020, were excluded. India selected as the basis for this study due to the socialization of waste, however, this study can and should be replicated to cover a variety of places where waste-pickers face difficulties. This limits the scope of the study but allows for more rigorous and detailed analysis of the literature selected. A full text review for this information occurred after. Finally, after the initial reviews, 28 articles were deemed relevant, and data was extracted from these 28 articles to create a literature review and collect the most common themes of each of the articles, paying particular attention to the types of injustices illustrated in each article. To see the full breakdown of the PRISMA method, please see Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

(Generated from Covidence)

Prisma data collection

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To analyze these articles, data regarding the issues facing female waste pickers, environmental justice issues, and power imbalances was collected utilizing a content analysis. Each of these main issues were grouped into overarching themes comprising of: Access to Markets, Access to PPE, Access to Basic Goods, Reproductive Labor, and Discrimination. There were the main themes used to categorize each of the articles, as they were the most common issues faced by female waste pickers according to these articles. Then, these themes were categorized based on which type of justice each represented. For example, access issues, based on the definition, were classified as a distributive injustice. One article could mention multiple types of injustices and issues.

4 Limitations

This study is not an all-encompassing review regarding female waste pickers in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to time constraints as well as a small research team, a systematic literature review was not able to be conducted properly. Furthermore, the study only took articles that were peer-reviewed, which meant that many of the articles that are in the process of becoming peer reviewed were not included at the time of this study, thus the study may be missing vital or more recent information.

5 Results

Before the pandemic, India began to modernize their waste management system by installing Waste-to-Energy plants and privatizing waste collection [3]. This began to push waste-pickers out of the waste market, resulting in a deprivation of livelihoods. While waste-pickers felt this strain prior to the pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these tensions. Waste pickers were already extremely vulnerable due to their occupation, income, and low caste. The pandemic worsened these conditions. The following sections indicate common themes throughout the systemized literature review.

Each of these sections detail a particular injustice faced by waste-pickers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, although none of the articles emphasized that this was an injustice explicitly. Most of the articles focused on distributive injustices, such as the distribution of unfair burdens such as reproductive labor. Procedural injustice was not mentioned in any of the articles, and some of the articles sparingly mentioned recognition injustices.

5.1 Distributive injustice: access to markets during the pandemic

Most of the literature discussed how the COVID-19 induced lockdowns closed waste markets, resulting in a depletion of income for waste pickers. Even before the pandemic, Chakraborty found that the entry of the private sector, such as the waste to energy plants, limited access to waste for waste pickers, severely damaging their livelihoods (2021). Cities also thoroughly limited access to waste prior to the pandemic, and continued this practice during it [13]. Women had an even harder time; they struggled in finding space in community bins to segregate trash to sell it to collectors. The pandemic had a greater perceived impact on women because they already had such limited opportunities [14, p. 12]. Thus, the pandemic compounded the limited availability of waste that the privatization of this sector created.

Banerjee et al. echoed this finding, contending that the introduction of the private sector pushed waste pickers out of the market, which plunged them into further precarity When the lockdowns were initiated in India, this economic insecurity was exacerbated because the collection of waste was restricted. The study highlights that 90% of female waste pickers were impacted severely by the lockdowns, while 37% reported that they lost their work [15, p. 6]. After the lockdowns were recanted, 34% of the respondents were unable to get back to work, and for those who did, they did so without PPE. During the COVID-19 pandemic, women were more likely to stop working in comparison to men. In Delhi specifically, many women said they needed capital to return to work, which men had more of, in comparison to women [16, p. 127].The lockdown also caused the rates for waste to decrease, directly impacting their incomes [15, p. 8, 17].

Waste pickers receive very little income for the work they do, and there exists a gender bias in the income levels. According to Singh et al. women and men waste pickers in Chandigarh earn different incomes, despite serving the same number of households. The average income for men is about $154.22, whereas women make about $145.43 per month [18, p. 5]. Singh et al., found that men also receive more working hours and higher per-house service charges, which contributes to the higher average income. Some of the authors additionally mentioned that the higher incomes could also be attributed to gendered stereotypes, such as the perception that women do lighter work but during the pandemic female waste workers were on the frontlines [19, p. 204, 20, p. 38]. Gender discrimination is one of the main barriers to equitable wages, making them more exposed to changes or shocks, like the pandemic. Female waste pickers also tend to have less of an education and a lack of capital, due to gender norms and social structures [21]. The pandemic closed numerous shops where waste pickers would deliver their waste. Because of the closures, they were not able to sell the waste, therefore resulting in a decrease in income. Chen et al. found that of the nine cities that surveyed waste pickers, 60% of them said that they were not able to work during the lockdowns due to restrictions on movement, health concerns, and disruptions to the waste supply. The closures were one of the biggest reasons for the decrease in income for those working in Ahmedabad and Delhi [22, p. 49].

Even in the waste sector, there were discrepancies in who lost their jobs and who didn’t, demonstrating distributive injustice. For example, Kakar et al. found that during the first wave of the COVID-19 lockdowns, contractual waste pickers did not face disruptions in employment, but informal waste pickers were highly limited in mobility and therefore could not sell or collect waste [23, p. 8]. This was also found by Jadhav et al., who described that self-employed (informal) waste pickers were prevented from going out and working, detrimentally affecting their income. The waste pickers who were working for the municipalities or employed in a more formal setting still had to work, collecting contaminated waste, without any PPE [24, p. 5288].

The synthesis of findings across the literature reveals a stark picture of the impact of COVID-19 induced lockdowns on waste pickers, particularly exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and inequalities within the waste management sector. Privatization initiatives, such as the introduction of waste-to-energy plants, had already restricted waste pickers’ access to resources, laying the groundwork for economic insecurity. The pandemic compounded these challenges, as lockdowns further limited waste market access and disrupted income streams, disproportionately affecting female waste pickers who faced heightened barriers to re-entering the workforce. Gender disparities in income levels persisted, with women earning significantly less despite often performing frontline work during the pandemic. Moreover, structural inequalities, such as limited education and capital, exacerbated women’s vulnerability to economic shocks. The closure of waste delivery outlets and restrictions on movement during lockdowns magnified income loss, with informal waste pickers bearing the brunt of disruptions while formal sector workers faced fewer employment challenges. These findings underscore the distributive injustices inherent in waste management systems, highlighting the need for policies and interventions that prioritize equitable access to resources, address gender biases, and safeguard the livelihoods of marginalized waste pickers, particularly in times of crisis.

5.2 Distributive injustice: accessing basic goods

With a decrease in income, waste pickers, especially female waste pickers, could not gain access to basic goods and services like food, water, housing, and social security during the pandemic. Food insecurity and lack of healthcare was common before the pandemic [25, p. 3]. However, this lack of basic goods and services was exacerbated further during the pandemic due to the decrease in income.

One study found that waste workers were not able to afford basic needs like housing during the pandemic, with many reporting that they were living in temporary housing, sometimes made of mud or plastic, exposing them to numerous health risks [23, p. 10]. Very few participants also had access to water or sanitation during the pandemic, and another study confirmed this finding, also contending that their participants faced food insecurity because their only source of income was disrupted [19, p. 213]. Waste pickers were discriminated against and harassed by the police, if they were to go out and secure food, due to the lockdown measures [26, p. 54]. In a way, the lockdowns worked against the informal sector, as it limited the mobility of those who needed to get food, creating a distributive injustice [19, p. 216]. Female waste pickers also faced increased trouble in gaining access to resources, especially food, with 56% of respondents in one study stating that they found it difficult to acquire food items [15, p. 11].

These waste workers became reliant on NGOs for food rations, but many reported that these rations were not adequate [19, p. 212, 23, p. 9]. Sanitation facilities were a huge concern for female waste pickers, as even before the pandemic. Female waste pickers did not have access to sanitary amenities such as toilets, which is highly inconvenient during menstrual cycles. It is also common for women in this occupation to get a hysterectomy due to the constant sicknesses and exposures to toxic waste [25, p. 3].

Women also went food insecure more often than men due to the gendered relations of the household. The pandemic limited the amount of food that was able to be provided for the poor, but one study found that women were always last to be served, therefore tended to eat less, increasing food insecurity, and rendering them more susceptible to disease and malnutrition [27, p. 66].

To alleviate the pandemic’s worst effects, the Indian government initiated numerous social security schemes, but there was disorganization and a lack of recognition of waste pickers and their issues [19, p. 205]. One example can be seen through the identity cards, which regulate access to healthcare or essential services, but since many waste pickers tended to live in informal settlements, they did not have access to these cards [19, p. 210]. This issue could have been avoided if procedural justice had been implemented properly and waste pickers or representatives had access to decision-making structures. Furthermore, during the pandemic, insurance schemes for sanitation workers were announced to alleviate the costs of the pandemic, but waste-pickers were not included in these schemes, further demonstrating the lack of recognition [19, p. 212].

The synthesis of findings regarding access to basic goods and services among waste pickers during the pandemic underscores the compounding effects of economic insecurity and structural inequities on their well-being. The decrease in income, exacerbated by pandemic-induced lockdowns, severely constrained waste pickers’ ability to afford essential necessities such as food, water, housing, and healthcare. Living conditions deteriorated for many waste pickers, with reports of makeshift housing lacking basic amenities and sanitation facilities. Female waste pickers faced heightened challenges, including limited access to food and sanitation, compounded by gendered household dynamics that prioritized male members’ needs. The reliance on NGOs for food assistance highlighted the inadequacy of government support mechanisms and the failure to recognize waste pickers’ vulnerabilities. Additionally, the lack of access to social security schemes and essential services further marginalized waste pickers, particularly those residing in informal settlements. These findings underscore the importance of addressing structural barriers and implementing procedural justice measures to ensure equitable access to resources and recognition of waste pickers’ rights. Furthermore, the exclusion of waste pickers from government support initiatives highlights the urgent need for policy reforms to address systemic injustices and safeguard the well-being of marginalized communities during crises, curating a recognition injustice as well.

5.3 Distributive injustice: accessing PPE

Most authors in this review mentioned that waste pickers were not given formal training or access to PPE during the pandemic. The lack of government recognition contributed to this as well. Waste workers were not provided proper equipment or even recognized in government schemes to alleviate some of the pandemic pressures [28]. The pandemic created a new health risk for these workers, as a surge of disposable plastics hit the environment, like masks. This materials contaminated and exposed waste pickers to COVID-19 [29, p. 81].

Kisana and Shah found that female waste pickers were aware of the risk of handling COVID-19 contaminated waste, but the precautions given to them were not feasible in their line of work [20, p. 43]. For example, many of the women interviewed explained that wearing gloves, masks, or overalls in the extreme heat was impractical. In addition, PPE was extremely expensive [20, p. 44].

The workers also did not have any idea if the masks, tissues, or gloves they were segregating were from COVID positive patients [20, p. 45]. In Gokhale and Yadav’s study, they interviewed SWaCH members of Pune City, and found that most of the SWaCh members attributed their infection of COVID-19 to the lack of PPE they had while handling the waste [30, p. 11]. Female waste pickers were even more susceptible to COVID-19 and other risks, as detailed in earlier sections. Despite these risks, waste pickers were still not paid well, as the earlier sections demonstrated, creating an injustice.

The synthesis of findings regarding the lack of formal training and access to PPE among waste pickers during the pandemic highlights critical gaps in occupational health and safety measures, exacerbating their vulnerability to COVID-19 and other health risks. Despite the emergence of a new health risk posed by the pandemic, waste pickers were largely neglected in government response efforts, lacking proper equipment and recognition within relief schemes. This negligence exposed them to heightened risks of COVID-19 transmission, particularly as they handled potentially contaminated waste materials without adequate protection.

Female waste pickers faced additional challenges, as the precautions recommended, such as wearing gloves and masks, were often impractical and unaffordable in their working conditions, further compromising their safety. The lack of clarity regarding the origin of disposable PPE items further increased the risk of exposure to infectious materials. Moreover, the persistently low wages, despite the heightened health risks, highlight the intersecting forms of injustice faced by waste pickers, further entrenching their marginalization within the waste management sector. These findings underscore the importance of prioritizing occupational health and safety measures for waste pickers, including access to affordable and appropriate PPE, comprehensive training programs, and recognition within government response frameworks.

5.4 Distributive injustice: increased reproductive labor

When COVID-19 shut down schools all over India, suddenly women started bearing the costs of childcare, providing for the family, and taking care of the household. These unpaid labor tasks are often referred to as reproductive labor, and numerous studies illuminate that reproductive labor increased greatly for female waste pickers during the pandemic [31, 32]. Banerjee et al.’s study exemplifies this. They found that women are dually exposed to the tensions that the COVID-19 lockdowns caused. But more importantly, the study also found that during the lockdowns, women were subjected to more unpaid work, including childcare due to the school closures. 47% of respondents said that no one helped them with the unpaid domestic work, which they did on top of the paid work [15, p. 10]. 34% of the respondents found that managing their children’s education was also an extreme challenge during the lockdown [15, p. 11].

Ogando et al. found that care issues during the COVID-19 pandemic influenced female waste pickers’ ability to work. For example, if a household did not have childcare support, they would be unable to work. Furthermore, due to the public nature of their jobs, women had increased anxieties about contagion, and they had to reduce their hours to take care of their children [33, p. 183]. These findings were echoed by Ismail et al., who said women with children were more likely to have adverse impacts on their economic activities, compounding the child-care/reproductive labor constraints faced by women [16, p. 136]. As care responsibilities increased, household debt also increased [33, p. 190].

Additionally, women faced the dual pressure of marriage. In one study, one respondent detailed how the groom’s family threatened to revoke the marriage since her dowry decreased, so the respondent had to take out a loan to get married [15, p. 13]. Many waste pickers needed to take out loans to address prevailing insecurities. For example, Luthra et al. [34] found that nearly 75% of their respondents took out a loan during the pandemic, but there was no gender difference in the data. In other words, female and males were equally likely to take out a loan based on their findings.

Women also faced more environmental hazards in their homes during the pandemic, due to the inability to purchase cleaner cooking fuels. Because of the decrease in income during the pandemic and many women’s unpaid household work, they were exposed more to unclean cooking fuels, impacting their health [35]. Hazards in waste-pickers’ households are not a COVID-19 phenomenon; in fact they tend to live in informal settlements near landfills and garbage, exposing them and their children to toxins [36].

The synthesis of findings regarding the increased reproductive labor burden among female waste pickers during the COVID-19 pandemic illuminates the intersecting challenges of gender, caregiving responsibilities, and economic precarity within waste management communities. With the closure of schools across India, women were disproportionately burdened with childcare, household chores, and caregiving duties, exacerbating existing inequalities in unpaid labor. Banerjee et al.’s study underscored the heightened unpaid workload experienced by women during lockdowns, with a significant portion of respondents shouldering caregiving responsibilities alone while also managing paid work. These findings were echoed by Ogando et al. and Ismail et al., highlighting the detrimental impact of care responsibilities on women’s economic activities and household debt. Additionally, the dual pressure of marriage further compounded women’s financial strain, with reports of dowry-related threats and increased reliance on loans to address insecurities. Women also faced heightened environmental hazards in their homes, exacerbated by the inability to afford cleaner cooking fuels, which impacted their health and well-being.

These findings underscore the disproportionate burden of reproductive labor and environmental risks borne by female waste pickers, perpetuating cycles of poverty and vulnerability within waste management communities. Addressing these systemic inequalities requires comprehensive interventions that recognize and redistribute caregiving responsibilities, provide economic support, and mitigate environmental hazards faced by waste pickers, particularly during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

5.5 Recognition injustice: discrimination and blame

Recognition injustices were mentioned sparsely throughout the literature. The main recognition injustice mentions in the literature had primarily to do with untouchability, discrimination, and blame. The pandemic exacerbated tensions of “untouchability” and discrimination against waste pickers. Prior to the pandemic, waste workers faced much discrimination in terms of employment, using public restrooms, and more. COVID-19 exacerbated this discrimination as people believed that waste workers were spreading the disease, forcing them to stay in their settlements due to public outcry [23, p. 14].

Women are dually marginalized in this work [37, p. 104]. Caste, poverty, and marriage structures are determinants of women entering the sanitation service. Women constantly face job insecurity, low pay, no social security, and physical and mental stress. Worst of all, they are continually made invisible by systems of oppression [37, p. 105]. Women are sitting at the crux of marginalization in this occupation, which results in disempowerment and poor mental health [37, p. 106]. The working restrictions during the pandemic were also discriminatory. Women were not allowed to enter common restrooms in the wealthy communities, reflecting the key tenets of “untouchability” [20, p. 45].

Finally, the pandemic also detracted from the waste pickers “right to waste” [30]. During and prior to the pandemic, waste pickers were not recognized and faced innate discrimination from the government and its’ institutions. For example, in Delhi, waste pickers were not considered essential workers, impacting their ability to collect waste [34]. Women often faced the brunt of this at the bottom of the social hierarchy ladder [19].

The misrecognition of waste pickers as non-essential during the pandemic highlights how misrecognition led to a decrease in job security. However, in some cases, female waste pickers prefer to remain invisible to the public. For example, in Assam, female waste pickers prefer to manipulate their identities to ensure that no one can tell they are waste pickers. Their identity as waste pickers opens them up to harassment and sexual abuse, therefore concealment is necessary to prevent unwanted attention [32].

The synthesis of findings regarding recognition injustices faced by waste pickers during the COVID-19 pandemic sheds light on the pervasive nature of discrimination, marginalization, and invisibility experienced by this vulnerable community. Despite being sparsely discussed in the literature, recognition injustices, particularly related to untouchability, discrimination, and blame, emerged as significant barriers to waste pickers’ rights and dignity. The pandemic exacerbated existing tensions of untouchability and discrimination against waste pickers, with heightened stigma and public scrutiny leading to increased marginalization and social exclusion. Women faced intersecting forms of marginalization, with caste, poverty, and gender dynamics shaping their experiences of discrimination, job insecurity, and limited access to social security. These findings underscore the urgent need to challenge systemic forms of discrimination and stigma faced by waste pickers, particularly during public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

6 Discussion and conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic clearly exacerbated and created environmental injustices; some of which detrimentally impacted female waste pickers more than males. By utilizing an environmental justice framework, this study was able to classify each of the current relevant literature on female waste pickers in India to identify potential research gaps. Examining the literature through an EJ lens reveals a predominant focus on distributive injustices. The privatization of waste management, aggravated by the pandemic, has exacerbated socio-economic disparities, causing economic strain, income loss, and restricted access to waste markets. These issues underscore the urgency of distributive justice, advocating for an equitable distribution of societal costs and benefits.

While distributive injustices are extensively discussed, the limited attention to recognition justice in the literature underscores a critical gap. The term “Invisible Heroes of India” emphasizes the paradox of waste pickers’ essential contributions to urban cleanliness and climate change mitigation, juxtaposed with their active discrimination against [29]. Recognition justice, essential in acknowledging and respecting the contributions of waste pickers, is an underexplored dimension that demands further research. Chen demonstrates this, as in their study they discuss how Pune began to recognize the waste pickers as essential, resulting in enhanced PPE for the workers and integration during the pandemic [13]. Chen’s study demonstrates the value of promoting recognition justice for waste pickers—recognition leads to better distributive outcomes.

Moreover, procedural justice remains notably absent in literature. Articles seldom discuss whether waste pickers were given an opportunity to raise concerns or participate in decision-making processes during the pandemic. This gap in procedural justice highlights a crucial aspect that requires more research attention. Understanding how procedural elements contribute to or mitigate injustices is pivotal for developing comprehensive and equitable waste management strategies. Future studies on waste pickers, especially in the post-pandemic era, should focus on understanding the procedural injustices or justice concerns that they face.

However, the noted injustices in the literature point to a pattern: the pandemic further compounded existing vulnerabilities that female waste pickers have (add citations from review). In the case of distributive justice, this lent itself in the form of difficulties accessing various goods and services. Prior to the pandemic, female waste pickers were more likely to be engaged in scavenging positions, have limited access to markets, and due to a lack of formal training, were paid much less than their male counterparts [4]. These issues continued well into the pandemic and some studies in this review even made the argument that the pandemic exacerbated these issues.

Notably, one environmental injustice that seemed to be missing from the literature after the pandemic occurred is the role of the privatization of waste and how this impacted waste-pickers during the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, MSW rules were implemented in 2000, which allowed the private sector to enter waste management, which resulted in the displacement of waste workers. For example, this occurred in Delhi in 2005, where waste workers were prevented from entering landfills or waste collection sites [4]. Similar instances occurred in more recent times, with the installation of Waste to Energy plants in India [3]. This displacement of waste pickers occurred prior to the pandemic, but the literature largely ignored how the privatization of waste interacted with the pandemic.

In terms of recognition justice, waste pickers were never recognized for the work that they do regarding urban cleanliness; however, this became more apparent with the social security schemes to provide relief to the poor—which excluded many waste pickers due to poor government design. Waste pickers’ lack of recognition was known before the pandemic. The profession was and is highly stigmatized due to the ideas of cleanliness, present in many South Asian cultures [38]. Waste is a place for socialization and power dynamics to take place [39]. How waste is perceived, thought about, and referenced is grounded in social relations, especially in India [40]. In India, attitudes about purity and pollution creates social boundaries, leading to caste and class differentiation, thus, the profession of waste picking is marred by heavy stigma and inadequate compensation [41]. Waste pickers have always been marginalized, and the pandemic, with the general stereotypes and misinformation regarding cleanliness, further perpetrated these harmful perceptions.

In terms of gender, the pandemic further illuminated the various social structures in place that create harsher environments, for which women must endure. From an FPE perspective, the pandemic was not necessarily a shock that led to this harsher environment, but rather a catalyst. Underlying the pandemic was innate social structures that impede female waste pickers’ livelihoods. For example, regarding distributive justice, many female waste pickers needed to take care of their children. Although the pandemic sent children home, reproductive labor existed well before the pandemic—it just became more obvious by rendering it public and as a part of prevention strategy [42, 43]. From an FPE perspective, as well as a feminist political economy perspective, the pandemic response could be seen as a formal reorganization of gendered work, exacerbating class, race, and gender inequalities. In essence, the pandemic placed additional care burdens on women, as the household became a place for social reproduction [42]. The literature on female waste pickers on India demonstrates that this was the case for them; female waste pickers were still expected to manage their children’s education when the pandemic shut down schools in India.

Structural inequalities all over the world were further exacerbated by the pandemic, placing increasing burdens on women, like in the case of female waste pickers [44]. The findings highlight the intricate power relations embedded in waste management processes, pointing to an advantage for males. For example, male waste pickers tend to get paid more, which was further exposed during the pandemic. The structures in place prior to the pandemic enabled this. Male waste pickers have tended to be in higher ranking positions in the informal waste economy, such as processors or sellers of the recyclable material [4]. This division in labor as well as the lack of formal training further prevents women from earning higher wages, and the pandemic further exacerbated this by preventing female waste pickers from collecting waste, as indicated by the studies presented in this review. Hence, the structures in place further depraved female waste pickers by making them further vulnerable to shocks, such as the pandemic. FPE’s emphasis on intersectionality proves crucial in understanding how gender, caste, poverty, and occupation intersect to magnify the vulnerabilities of women in this field.

However, despite the focus of this study revealing some of the environmental injustices faced by waste pickers during COVID-19, these articles also highlighted an important point: the contribution of waste-pickers to environmental justice. As Jake Kosek alludes to, environmental justice ensures that all people have the right to benefit and live in a healthy, sustainable environment, and the literature indicated that during and before COVID-19, waste pickers have worked to achieve this goal [45]. Because of the nature of their work, waste pickers ensure that urban spaces are clean and able to be enjoyed by everyone, while also mitigating climate change; in essence the articles alluded to the fact that waste pickers are vehicles of environmental justice for the rest of society. However, the true injustice that comes from this is the fact that they are still not valued in society for their work and the government has not provided them proper equipment to continue their work in a humane and safe manner, especially during the age of COVID-19.

Waste pickers continue to be an important part of India’s solid waste management system, despite the numerous injustices levied against them. Their contributions are key to mitigating climate change and reducing emissions from waste [1]. But these injustices, which were further exacerbated by the pandemic, limit waste-pickers’ ability to contribute to environmental justice. Thus, India’s solid waste management system requires careful attention to the distributive and recognition injustices presented in this literature review to ensure the waste pickers are treated fairly and continue their important work. To do this, policymakers should consider enhancing participatory processes of waste-pickers and ensuring that they are key stakeholders in municipal waste processes. In Pune, for example, the formalization of the waste sector via a union allowed for effective communication between the municipality and the waste pickers, creating better working conditions [46]. As mentioned in the literature review, these workers fared much better than the informal workers. Enhancing procedural justice in this manner may lead to better distribution and recognition justice outcomes. More research however is needed to be done regarding the procedural injustices that waste pickers face, as indicated by this literature review. Furthermore, the FPE perspective illuminated the specific challenges faced by female waste pickers. These challenges include extreme food insecurity, the added burden of reproductive labor, and unique sanitation concerns. The differentiation in challenges faced by female waste workers compared to men needs recognition to inform policy effectively. However, even though there are gender differences in how injustices impacted waste pickers, it important to point out that female waste pickers are not passive victims to these injustices. Many have mobilize and continue to mobilize in order to dismantle existing patriarchal structures [47].

While this literature review primarily focuses on India, the issues faced by female waste workers are not region exclusive. Further global research is essential to fully understand the implications of environmental justices and injustices faced by female waste pickers during COVID-19. It is crucial for academics and policymakers to recognize and address the differentiated challenges faced by female waste workers to inform more inclusive and effective policies globally. To summarize, this paper contributes two main findings: research on the topic of female waste pickers during the COVID-19 pandemic tends to focus on distributive and recognition injustices, and the pandemic did not necessarily create injustices, rather exacerbated them. Thus, more research is needed to explore the procedural injustice aspects of waste picking in India. In terms of policy, policymakers must understand that the issues that waste pickers face during the pandemic are not new, therefore, changes to power structures must be addressed in order to ensure that female waste pickers are fully heard.

The synthesis of FPE and EJ perspectives offers a comprehensive framework for addressing the multifaceted challenges faced by waste pickers, especially women, during the COVID-19 era. Recognizing the gendered dimensions of ecological processes, challenging existing power structures, and advocating for distributive, procedural, and recognition justice are central to fostering environmental and gender justice. Policymakers and stakeholders must integrate FPE and EJ principles into waste management strategies to ensure a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable approach. The findings emphasize the urgent need for systemic changes that prioritize the rights, dignity, and well-being of waste pickers within the broader discourse of environmental justice.