Scavenging In Port-au-Prince, Ouest, Haiti

Prevalence and demographics
There is little reliable data about the number and demographics of waste pickers worldwide. Most academic research on waste pickers is qualitative rather than quantitative. Systematic large-scale data collection is difficult due to the profession’s informal nature, porous borders, seasonally fluctuating workforce, and widely dispersed and mobile worksites. Also, many researchers are reluctant to produce quantitative data out of fear that it might be used to justify crackdowns on waste picking by authorities. Thus, the large-scale estimates that do exist are mainly extrapolations based on very small original research samples. In his book, "The World's Scavengers" (2007), Martin Medina provides a methodological guide to researching waste picking.
In 1988, the World Bank estimated that 1–2% of the global population subsists by waste picking. A 2010 study estimates that there are 1.5 million waste pickers in India alone. Brazil, the country that collects the most robust official statistics on waste pickers, estimates that nearly a quarter million of its citizens engage in waste picking.