Gender and Waste Nexus: Experiences from Bhutan, Mongolia and Nepal

Gender mainstreaming in the waste sector

The current gendered profile of the waste sector is largely the product of attitudes about and stereotypes of men and women directly linked to everyday life in the three countries. These gendered norms manifest in the waste sector in distinctive ways and are visible throughout the entire waste management value chain. Attitudes shape realities and consequently structural conditions in the waste sector, which in turn justify and harden gender norms. Women’s responsibility for maintaining the domestic sphere is both descriptive and prescriptive. Women are prevalent in informal, voluntary, household and neighbourhoodactivities related towaste,which include organizing and attending community meetings on recycling initiatives and organizing and participating in neighbourhood clean-up days. Women’s engagement in these activities reflects the widespread notion that keeping communities clean is merely an extension of their conventional domestic roles, thereby hardening the norm and serving as a justification for excluding women from certain waste jobs, such as business leadership or truck driving. At the same time, men’s lower rate of participation in neighbourhood waste activities creates and perpetuates their alienation from local social networks, leaving them more isolated and feeling less responsible for the everyday well-being of their communities.

To challenge current norms and practices and to create a more gender-responsive waste management sector, interventions should be implemented through practical gender mainstreaming, which should be defined primarily as a process that balances men’s and women’s participation throughout the waste management hierarchy. Gender mainstreaming is relevant for all stakeholders and structures that interconnect with the sector and influence it. Gender mainstreaming can provide a set of immediate practical objectives applicable at all structural levels and through all stakeholders (see annex 2). Mainstreaming can be a first-line response to existing gender inequalities embedded within waste management in Bhutan, Mongolia and Nepal. However, gender mainstreaming objectives should not limit the potential for more progressive thinking on gender transformative change within society. Gender analysis in the waste sector should therefore continue in Bhutan, Mongolia and Nepal and seek for incremental transformative strategies. The following section describes two scenarios: first, following a business-as-usual direction and second, following the implementation gender-informed interventions, which, as the ideal scenario, sees gender fullymainstreamed into the waste sector and all current gender inequalities addressed to take advantage of untapped opportunities.

Lunch break at recycling place in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo by iStock/DimaBerkut.

80 Gender and waste nexus