The recycling industry needs to be recognised, and their voices heard by authorities for the sake of improved partnership work.
And with the Global Recycling Day in two weeks’ time, local recyclers, Waste Recyclers Fiji Ltd (WRFL) has called for more recognition of local expertise in the recycling space.
WRFL director and chief executive officer Amitesh Deo said they had experienced situations in which their contribution towards the development and advancement of the recycling sector had been undervalued, ignored or discounted as irrelevant.
“Our plea to everyone, particularly to development partners, is do not drown the local voices in the recycling space when they bring in overseas expertise to help us reshape the recycling landscape,” he said.
“While we welcome foreign expertise to guide us towards better systems and processes, there must always be an element of local inclusion.”
WRFL has been in operation for over 26 years now and is a local-management-led company.
Mr Deo said they had been working very closely with different sectors, including the informal waste picker community. He said recyclers would continue to demand for consultation process when new concepts were introduced into the recycling space.
“New concepts and models must complement work that is currently in place and not take away from those who depend on the sector, in particular the grassroots community.
“So when we create new pathways for recycling or any sector for that matter, we must evaluate the process using a local frame of reference to ensure that there is sustainability to the concepts.
“Where informal waste pickers are concerned, we have very clear and community-integrated plans for the informal waste picker community in Fiji, which we will reveal leading up to the 2022 Global Recycling Day.”
Fiji, he said, like anywhere else in the world, was unique.
“WRFL also has formed a strong network and relationship with the informal waste-picker community in Fiji. Informal waste pickers are individuals who collect recyclables as the main source of income.”
Meanwhile, WRFL will announce its Global Recycling Day event plans in the next few days, as work has already begun on some major announcements.
