WINTER 2026
ISSUE 05

₁ At the time of writing (Fall 2025), 5,000 Sri Lankan Rupees (LKR) is around USD 16.50.

I met Irrfan (26), seated on a truck outside his shop in Maligawatte, facing a thin lane abutting a canal that ran into a cluster of homes, shops, and religious places. He picked up, identified, and organized a pile of scrap metal from a loaded lorry into a makeshift tent. He did this quickly, able to almost instinctively distinguish between sheets of iron, aluminum, and copper. He had no boots, apron, or gloves, opting instead for a pair of old rubber sandals. He held up his hands to me. They looked like gloves – blackened and bruised into a scab tattooed by scars, dust, and imprints of rust.

When I asked him if he needed protective equipment, he told me: “Those things are not suitable for us. We use our bare hands. We have become used to touching these materials [. . .] I get cut and infected. But I am not bothered by chemicals or toxic substances. I am used to it.”

He multitasked while telling me his life story, explaining his role, and introducing me to his comrades, who stood by shyly at first but then chimed in. Irrfan studied in school until grade eight. At the age of 12, he dropped into junkyards and scrapyards and learned the tricks of the trade. “Since my childhood, I remember being surrounded by iron. Eventually, I fell into this field and got used to it. I started doing this role at 12. Whenever I finished school, I’d come on site and help out. Those days, I received LKR 350 per day,” he said. “At the moment, I receive LKR 5,000 per day.”¹

He starts his work at 8:30am everyday, including Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, even religious ones. He told me that while his role has a lot of flexibility, he had to maintain this consistency to meet his daily expenses. 

Irrfan’s boss, Faloor Rahman (39), collects materials from shops, small-to-medium businesses, and industries. Rahman joined the conversation at this point, reporting that he buys one kilogram of copper for LKR 240, one kilogram of aluminum for LKR 2,300, and one kilogram of iron for LKR 115. 

“There is money in this business at all times,” Rahman said. He started a business at 17, closed it, ran a tuk-tuk around Colombo, and migrated to the Middle East for manual labor before returning home to Colombo to start this business in the informal sector.

When Rahman brings piles of material to the shed, Irrfan and his co-worker Latiff identify and separate them and then stack them into neat piles, ready to be transported to the recycling center. 

“We separate copper, aluminum, and iron. The iron is sometimes put into a machine and sliced up into separate pieces. We then transport them,” Irrfan said. 

Sri Lanka has no seasons like in the West, but there are periods of intense heat and monsoon rain. Irrfan is used to all weather, be it extreme heat, rain, or humidity, but finds it difficult if the rain breaks into their shed. 

For these workers, copper – highly conductive, malleable, and corrosion resistant – is one of the most in-demand metals. Its industrial value comes from the various uses it has, from plumbing and wires to appliance fans and electric vehicles. Sometimes, it is even melted down and mixed into gold. Often, Rahman told me, it is simply exported overseas, especially to India.

“Waste is not a concept I understand,” said Rahman. “Everything here is a resource that brings in money.” Plastic, too, is money, he and Irrfan added. 

“There is nothing to discard here,” Irrfan said. “It is only people like us who see the real value of these materials here.”

But in Sri Lanka, the movement of material is highly uneven. Households do not sort their waste. Waste separation practices are not standardized. Practices such as incineration in backyards and open dumping on roads, parks, and beaches are still the norm. Local authorities and private companies are neither able nor willing to shoulder the costs of managing the sheer amount of disposed material. The private sector handles the processing of hazardous materials like plastic, chemicals, and batteries, and turns food scraps into energy and compost. The recycling and upcycling sector is tiny. Most enterprises still process materials with outdated technology and manual labor. 

The demarcation between picking or collecting work and social reproduction are blurry here. They are not separate realms but intersecting and mutually dependent zones of labor and activity, where what happens inside a household is replicated outside. If identifying and sorting waste is essential to the running of a household, then pickers and collectors do this quiet but crucial form of care labor across the island’s cities. These workers help to prevent diseases like dengue and malaria, maintain public health, keep neighborhoods clean, and facilitate the movement of in-demand materials across industries. Yet workers in this sector are neither recognized nor valued for their labor. They are precarious, informal, and frequently invisible.

Karunaratne (59) pushes his karata (cart) around Colombo. He only studied in school until grade two and entered this trade because he had no other option for income. He starts his day at 6:00am when he heads on foot to centers, roads, and apartment complexes to look for material like plastic bottles and metal pieces. Once his cart is full, he pushes it to various collection centers in Maradana, Colombo to sell. 

Anne Amarasinghe (55) does not have a set routine. She has a number of jobs and volunteers in her local church. Every morning, she travels to various households in her local area of Wattala and collects objects from them. Depending on the quality and quantity of the material provided, she pays them a small sum. For one kilogram of PET plastic bottles, she pays LKR 50. 

“I have 30 households, and no matter the time, they provide it to me,” she told me over the phone. She has distributed cards to help households understand the services she provides and the methods to reach her. Certain households call and tell her to pick up bundles of material. Some people drop them at her house. At other times, she sends her husband in his tuk-tuk to pick them up. 

Once she receives a pile, she picks out certain objects like plastic bottles, glass bottles, colored bottles, and cardboard. If the materials are spoiled or dirty, she cleans them. She moves in and out of her house while juggling a number of roles, paid and unpaid.

“I start once I have some free time. If I have a lot of objects, I call my hired helper and get her to pitch in. I understand the materials in demand. We sit together and choose the necessary objects. I have other jobs too, so I delegate to her [to move on to them]. I cannot do this at a stretch, say for like seven hours. I prefer to move in and out of the role.” 

The monsoon season presents problems. When it rains, the floods seep in and ruin the materials she has gathered: “We are penalized if there is any kind of liquid in the objects. I bring objects to my house and there is no place to store them. When it rains, I need a place to store them. If it gets exposed, I have to clean them again. I need a special hut or a separate resource bank to run my operations smoothly.” 

Ayeni (33) is based near Anne in Wattala. She and her husband operate as a pair. Her husband is a casual mason. He is not employed every day and does not have a set schedule. Sometimes, he takes his cart around their local area on free days, Saturdays, Sundays, and in the evenings when he finishes work early. His days are long: oftentimes he leaves their house at 6:00am and returns home at 7:00pm. He travels to beaches and dumpsites to look for material and picks up rubbish discarded on roadsides. Ayeni sees the environmental impacts of their labor, which makes rivers cleaner and eliminates diseases common in tropical countries: “Even if we are not on the job, if we see a bottle by the roadside or a container filled with rainwater, we collect it.” 

Naushad (48) runs a box-shaped shop in Panchikawatte. The main road is small enough to hold a single tuk-tuk but is hedged on either side by multistory houses painted in bright primary colors, groups playing carrom, various religious centers (temples, kovils, churches, and mosques) and little enterprises: roadside vendors, paper recyclers, and mini-shops storing essentials like rice, sugar, and tea. I found Naushad among a group of paper collectors balancing tightly stacked papers on bicycles and carts. 

Naushad left school at grade six and learned to be a collector from his father. Though work in this sector is unregulated, he has mandated the use of masks, gloves, and boots. He runs his shop with a hired hand. 

Chamara Theepan (29) runs a similar enterprise called Chamara Steels in Attidiya, in an area full of small huts and shops with two to three employees collecting, separating, and transporting materials.

Chamara hires two workers and collects municipal materials. They begin at 9:00am daily, collecting materials from lorries and carts owned by the local authorities. Plastic, cardboard, and metals are stored and sorted in the shop before being transported to recycling centers once a week. 

Neel Perera (52) runs his collection center out of his house in a suburb called Moratuwa. His house is hard to find, tucked away beyond a lake behind a series of train tracks and nestled in a thick tapestry of houses and microenterprises. Neighbors are always about, sometimes playing cricket and other times playing cards, while working men stack banana leaves on carts – the mood is at once claustrophobic, leisurely, and busy.

Neel had a registered business for steel collection but had to close it during the economic crisis. He started another business, this time in the informal sector, which he currently runs from his home. He starts his day at 8:00am and handles all his materials manually. He uses his bare hands and old clothes because he does not have proper equipment like aprons or gloves. “To clean the objects, I use a brush that has metal bristles. All the sorted materials are stored in my home because I do not have a separate store. With my lorry, I transport these materials. We send the stocks to the collection centers once they notify us of their requirements because they do not have a proper timeline.” 

One of the materials he struggles to store is coconut shells because they become a haven for rodents and snakes. Neel was a regular at the waste management meetings run by his local municipal council. But he finds their support inconsistent. “During the pandemic, I needed a permit to deliver four tons of coconut shells. So I spoke with the Grama Niladhari (local officer), who advocated for me with the municipal council,” he said. “I am currently ignoring these meetings because they offer no benefits. I realized that focusing on my job instead of these meetings earns me the necessary income. My relationship with other people in my industry is not a strong point, because they do not treat me with respect.”

N. Selvamani (63) and Nandhini Rajaratnam (43) are unique in that they are women who run their own collection centers. Studies have criticized Sri Lanka’s female labor force participation, but they consistently dismiss the high numbers of female participation in the informal sector. 

Selvamani collects materials like cardboard, iron, and tin, which the local authorities drop off at her shop. Her husband ran the business for one year before he died. She continues his shop because it is an easy method to earn income. “I feel like an equal,” she told me. “I have two male employees, but they are my family members – my [late] husband’s brothers. I do not think of them as my employees.”

Similarly, Nandhini collects plastic, iron, cardboard, and bottles. She has five employees and relies on the shop for her primary income. “I started this business because these materials, seen as useless by others, could be turned into a source of income.” She has run her shop for 12 years and has run into trouble. Unlike Selvamani, Nandhini feels that she is discriminated against because of her gender. She has also experienced concerns about her safety.

The waste workers do not have contracts and lack basic job security, benefits, and protections. Stereotypes about the sector are rampant. Certain workers are assumed to be either consumers or sellers of drugs. There is no paid leave, no holidays, and no sick leave. Specialized equipment like gas cutters are rare, leaving workers to cut metals by hand. There are no unemployment benefits or robust social protection systems in Sri Lanka. Workers have to continue to labor into their old age and have no retirement benefits. 

There is no separation of life and labor, even in formal enterprises like Yakada Badu Kade (Iron Parts Shop) in Dematagoda. The space faces the main road and has no door or enclosure. Parts of the edifice have been broken, exposing the land behind it. Both the path leading to the shop and the shop itself are full of porcelain objects, metal sheets, and plastic bundles. There are smells from the liquids leaking from objects. Mosquitoes, flies, and rodents are common. Arjun and his comrade have a table stacked to one side of the shop. Rather than having a separate meal room, they share one bath (rice) packet set on a table in the midst of the hazardous environment. 

Women, too, are pushed into the sector. Women that are senior, disabled, or young mothers are often employed in sorting and recycling centers. They have a lot of freedom because they move from their homes to their job and back home. They can start late, run home to feed their children, and then return once the children are fed. But discrimination and exploitation are inescapable. In one paper collection center, women are paid LKR 500–1,000 less than their male counterparts. The “boss” claimed that women do not toil as hard as their male counterparts in order to justify the exploitative pay. He said that he used to employ four women but halved that number because of their unsatisfactory performance.

Others like Karunaratne took out debts that have only accumulated over time: “I could not go out. I took loans from neighbors, for LKR 100,000, and spent it. I am still in debt.” Waste collectors like Naushad and Rahman had to close their shops and did not have enough money to eat or drink. One study revealed that during the pandemic, households started to reduce, reuse, and recycle themselves. As a result, the amount of material collected decreased. The accumulated stock became a problem (from mosquito and rodent infestations). The market for the collected stock also fell. 

Waste pickers and collectors faced increased risks of infection, had a reduced income, and experienced public discrimination because people believed they spread disease. They also experienced verbal threats, harassment, and physical threats. A source in the study recalled: “Once when I was collecting waste, a group of residents cornered me and asked, ‘Don’t you know that there is a virus going around the country? Why are you traveling here and collecting waste?’ They ultimately threatened to break my bones.” 

Since the country opened up its economy in 1977, Sri Lanka has accumulated a series of structural problems such as a current account deficit, a budget deficit, and an external debt problem. The end of the long civil war in 2009 saw Sri Lanka take on even more external loans to finance long-term white-elephant development projects riddled with corruption. A series of more recent shocks – the 2017–18 droughts, the blow to tourism from the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, and the 2020 Covid pandemic – upset the equilibrium of the country’s economy. Then, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ill-advised fiscal policies (such as tax cuts), the decision to become 100 percent organic overnight by banning chemical fertilizers, and the use of reserves to service debt rather than default combined to create a crisis of essentials. All across Sri Lanka, supplies of fuel, kerosene, gas, medicines, and basic medical equipment all ran dry. The prices of basic food staples skyrocketed. The country ran out of paper. There were nationwide 12-hour-long electricity shortages in April, the hottest month of the year.

Rahman told me: “The prices of petrol hit us in particular. If the price was LKR 500 for one liter of petrol, we had to buy it at that price. We needed petrol to drive our lorries and to transport goods. At that time, I remember buying petrol for LKR 3,000 or LKR 10,000. If the materials were not transported, the money would have been blocked, and this could have upset the functioning of the entire business.” 

Others like Naushad had to rely on donations from religious centers and rich benefactors: “We received staples like rice from the religious centers in our area. This included Buddhist temples, kovils, the church, and the mosque. Whatever donations they received, they split it up and distributed it to us. Rich people in this area also provided some funds.” 

“I did not take part in the 2022 protests, because I have a family to look after,” S. Rathnakumara (52) told me. But Theepan participated in protests: “I was interested in the movement, but we had no union to make labor-specific demands,” he said. 

The protests focused on themes of misgovernance and corruption in the political elite. While left formations, parties, and trade unions existed, they could not radicalize the momentum into one of class struggle or transfer the momentum to revitalize the country’s labor movement. 

Nandhini participated in the protests too, arguing that women’s voices needed to be heard: “When we share ideas, take them into consideration and prioritize our opinions too.” But she noted with disappointment that the protests centered on the demands of “middle-class people.” 

Despite its many failures and limitations, the protests managed to remove the president. His successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, instituted a political project that anchored neoliberalism in the heart of the Sri Lankan economy. The country entered the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Extended Fund Facility in 2023, and Wickremasinghe introduced tax hikes such as a value-added tax (VAT) and removed subsidies for fuel, electricity, and fertilizer. Political economist, Kalpa Rajapaksha, has argued that “the Extended Fund Facility under the IMF was not all about credit.” Rather, as he told me, “it provided a basic framework for global capital to reengage the local capitalist class to legitimize their toxic credit and investments and, ultimately, to continue with the debt cycle, which is fundamentally an instrument of imperialist geopolitical order. Obviously, this is a continuation of the debt trap.” The recently elected National People’s Power have not fulfilled promises to provide economic relief, renegotiate the IMF deal, or initiate an alternative debt sustainability analysis.

Workers in the informal sector have been hit hardest. The poverty rate is 24.5 percent. The household debt level is 38.5 percent, mostly incurred for economic activities, housing, and basic needs like food and fuel. Food inflation is at 2.9 percent. 

Waste pickers like Anne are impacted. She earns LKR 18,000–25,000 per month, but her household needs LKR 70,000 to function. Utilities alone cost LKR 10,000, and food costs LKR 30,000. “I do not have school-going children, so that is a relief,” she said. “We have a financial target [for the month], but the money earned is not enough for our three-person household.” 

Naushad echoed this sentiment: “Whatever money we earn is not sufficient. Even if we earn LKR 3,000 per day, there are expenses of LKR 5,000, which we do not have. We skip protein like fish and meat. We do not have complete and full meals. I have one 15-year-old child in school who needs LKR 20,000 per month. He just sat and finished his O-Levels.” 

In such dire and precarious circumstances, where workers are isolated and atomized, some kind of collective political formation is key. Over a decade ago, a protest collective called the People’s Movement Against the Meethotamulla, Kolonnawa Garbage Dump (PMMKGD), led by local activists and nearby residents protesting the Meethotamulla garbage mountain, furnished one inspiring example. They hosted road blockades, ran satyagrahas, and even filed court cases, braving police violence, physical attacks, and arrests to voice their demands. In March 2017, a fire broke out, and a month later, the garbage mountain collapsed, split in half, and avalanched into trees, houses, and people on-site. Thirty died, one hundred houses were destroyed, and two hundred families lost their land because of the demarcation of unsafe zones.

Unionization appears to be another route to take. But not all the speakers agreed. “If I buy materials for LKR 100, another place could buy it for LKR 150. With a trade union, all the stores have to buy for a set price. We could lose business,” Rahman said.

“There is no point for me to run a trade union or an association. If more people join, then it makes sense,” Naushad said. In his area, all the businesses run in isolation. Workers do not meet and mix to discuss their problems or organize together. 

Others like Karunaratne are open to unionization because it could help fix the prices of his materials and secure gear and equipment. Theepan is also interested in three specific demands: a fixed price for materials (as opposed to prices fixed by recycling centers), a reduction in the cost of basic staples, and an end to corruption. Neel Perera is open to these ideas too. He is also keen to see a separate collection hub for each collected material such as plastics, metal, and papers. Even more important to him is access to capital: “My demand is all about access to a loan to establish a dedicated store for materials. This loan is crucial because banks do not see my job as legitimate and consistently reject my applications. I’d also like support to invest in recycling machinery to set up a proper in-house recycling process. This could help me process materials, increase my revenue, and perform a better job. I also need help to finance the registration fee for a machinery permit,” he said.

Workers are feeling the economic pressure and also face the risk of other hazards, like the build up of another garbage mountain in Madampitiya and toxic materials from the entrepot waste trade. What form this sector’s mobilization takes is yet to be seen. Since the protests in 2022, the political spirit of the country has been diverse and alive. Waste pickers and collectors provide an essential service (i.e., all urban areas are dependent on them and their labor). If they stop, even for a day, material could pile up and contaminate the streets, canals, and parks, disrupting production reliant on recycled materials. Any kind of political formation that strategically targets the extraction, distribution, and manufacturing of material is bound to be of note. This means that these individuals are a potent force to anticipate.