Formalizing the Romanian informal waste sector: how interested are informal recyclers?

The problem of informal sector formalization is a real challenge for any national economy, mostly if it is from a South-East European country like Romania. The formalization of waste management informal activities involves a pragmatic assessment of wide social, cultural and behavioral issues, especially since the majority of waste pickers, scavengers or informal recyclers belong to various categories of vulnerable groups. But how satisfied are these people in their activity? Does informal recyclers intent to formalize their work? How are these people concerned to formalize their activities? How receptive are informal recyclers if they would provide the opportunity to work with an official employment contract? How willing are informal waste recyclers to quit social benefits? Do informal recyclers want to be part of officially waste management system? The author tries to find answers to all these questions by assessing the informal recyclers interest about the existing possibilities of formalization, mostly for vulnerable persons involved in informal collection and recycling of waste recoverable materials. Studying the behavior and expectations of informal recyclers is made through formal and informal research tools like questionnaire-based survey, semi-structured interviews, informal discussions with waste pickers and analysis of relevant documents in the field. The final purpose of the study is to identify the real perception of informal waste recyclers related to opportunity of their informal work integration in the officially waste management system and evaluate their believes regarding formalizing process advantages and limits.