In certain areas of Portland, you might have a chance to see Ground Score Association’s GLITTER teams in action. They wear blue vests, travel on foot, by wheelchair, scooter, and e-bike. They’re on a mission to create a cleaner community and to help people experiencing homelessness have a cleaner living environment by providing tent-side waste removal service.
Ground Score’s radically inclusive, peer led GLITTER trash collection program is renowned among a global collective of waste pickers and has garnered attention from international groups like the UN’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, yet the group isn’t well known locally. Staff within the City of Portland’s Impact Reduction Program, who’ve helped facilitate and secure city funding for the program, have long recognized its value, and recent data they’ve collected now puts hard numbers on the many ways this program benefits the community.
What is Ground Score?
Ground Score Association is a peer-led initiative fiscally sponsored by the nonprofit Trash for Peace. Started in 2019, the organization is part of a global movement to legitimize the important work of waste pickers - canners, scrappers, dumpster divers and recyclers who earn a living by salvaging discarded goods and reusing or reselling them. Ground Score is an affiliate of the International Alliance of Waste Pickers, a global trade union that represents more than 460,000 waste pickers across 34 countries. Globally, the IAWP estimates that there are over 20,000,000 people who earn some or all of their livelihood from waste picking.
Locally, waste picking is a viable source of income, largely, because of Oregon’s Bottle Bill. You may have noticed an increase in litter and trash in Portland’s public spaces over the last several years, but you probably haven’t noticed a lot of returnable containers showing up as part of that trash problem. The state’s willingness to place a value on beverage containers results in a win for the environment as people are incentivized to recycle, keeping items off the streets and out of landfills.
The Bottle Bill also has significant economic benefits. Canning is a flexible, accessible work opportunity for people who often have barriers to more formal employment. Ground Score’s mission is to collectively organize local people who earn a living through this type of work. They seek to build recognition for the legitimacy and importance of the work, and advocate for more formal work opportunities that help waste pickers have more steady income, better safeguards, supports and benefits.
G.L.I.T.T.E.R City Partnership
In 2021, the City of Portland’s Impact Reduction Program forged a partnership with Ground Score Association in response to the urgent need for trash pickup. The collaboration resulted in GLITTER - Ground Score Leading Inclusively Together Through Environmental Recovery.
The GLITTER program was designed to conduct general litter pick up but has always been primarily focused on serving people experiencing homelessness. It uses Impact Reduction Program data about where people are living outside to prioritize waste collection routes, then GLITTER teams work in those locations to provide garbage service to people living outdoors. Currently the program runs about 24 tent-side waste collection routes in Old Town, downtown, the Central Eastside, North Portland, and East Multnomah County.
The partnership capitalizes on work Ground Score participants were already doing (waste picking and collecting), but establishes important, reliable funding. That funding means Ground Score can offer more ad hoc, pick-up work, and also more formal payroll positions. Currently, GLITTER has 63 payroll employees. Payroll positions come with supports like sick pay and guaranteed wages during inclement weather.
Building Economic Independence and Housing Security
Wage earning opportunities are a another, important way the GLITTER program serves people experiencing homelessness. GLITTER teams are largely staffed by people who are unhoused or housing insecure, themselves. Pick-up shifts are offered at $20/hour, sometimes to individuals living in and around the camps the teams help keep clean. Most GLITTER payroll staff start out through pick-up shift opportunities (81.25% report starting out as a pick-up shift worker), making these casual shifts an important potential transition to steady employment. This year so far, 116 new workers picked-up GLITTER shifts for the first time.
The program’s commitment to radical inclusivity makes these job opportunities truly low barrier – even more so than many other easy entry jobs. 67% of GLITTER workers report having a disabling condition, and the program provides necessary accommodations to ensure equitable participation. GLITTER also doesn’t require workers to be sober, but has helped employees access recovery and treatment. 59% of GLITTER participants reported experiencing a decrease in their substance use since their participation started.
A recent survey conducted by Ground Score and City of Portland Impact Reduction program staff surfaced a broad range of positive outcomes for GLITTER participants:
Active substance use among workers decreased from 39% at the start of employment to 14%
GLITTER workers reported significant improvements in physical and mental health:
17% improved nutrition
16.5% experienced better mental health
11% gained access to primary care
Approximately 39.29% of respondents reported a change in their living situation as a result of continued employment with GLITTER. Of those, workers report the following changes:
70% rented a house or apartment
20% moved into a cooperative village (Hazelnut Grove or R2D2)
10% rented a room using income
Sustainability Outcomes
The same study also revealed the many ways GLITTER benefits the environment and operates in ways that prioritize sustainability – much more so than most other trash collection services. GLITTER is able to divert 19% of the waste they pick up from landfills and their teams take time to remove micro debris - small but often highly toxic forms of waste that can easily end up in sewer drains and waterways. Since January 2024, GLITTER teams have removed over 9,000 sharps from public spaces and collected 165,031 cigarette butts.
Currently, GLITTER takes textile waste to Hygiene4All for washing and redistribution, and non-reusable textiles are sent for rag-making. Furniture, wood, and textile waste is also upcycled through Ground Score Association’s new reuse and repair program.
Since January 2024 GLITTER Teams have removed 174,701 lbs. of trash. They diverted 33,392 lbs. of that trash from landfills.
Providing trash pick-up at camps reduces the need for harmful waste practices prevalent in houseless campsites. A 2022 survey conducted by the Impact Reduction Program found that many campers reported regular practices of burning trash (35%) and dumping trash (33%) due to a lack of available trash service.
GLITTER teams move around the city largely on foot, by wheelchair/scooter, public transit or e-bike. Just a few trucks are employed to pick up collected garbage at drop locations around town, meaning GLITTER utilizes far fewer fossil fuels than traditional waste management operations.
In March 2024 the program piloted a bagless waste collection system that has the potential to prevent thousands of plastic bags from entering the landfill.
Additional Partnerships and new opportunities
GLITTER is also expanding the scope of work done for the City, partnering with some City bureaus and offices on educational campaigns. Most recently GLITTER participants teamed up with PBOT staff along a stretch of Sandy Boulevard where construction was starting. Teams engaged with people experiencing homelessness there to ease concerns about the construction project’s use of drones, and notified campers about upcoming construction activity to make sure people are staying clear and safe of heavy equipment and traffic.
The City’s Impact Reduction Program has worked with Ground Score on other innovative projects beyond GLITTER, too. In 2020, Ground Score Association was supported by the City of Portland in its founding of The People’s Depot, a beverage container redemption center started during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many other redemption centers had suspended services.
Today, The People’s Depot is still in operation, even as the COVID-19 epidemic has subsided, thanks to its popularity and highly efficient operations. It offers an alternative space for container redemption that is operated by workers who understand the social stigma that can lead many canners to feel judged and unwelcome at other redemption centers. Having paid Ground Score staff at The People’s Depot also generates more easy entry, benefitted job opportunities that offer formal work experience.
One more, brand new partnership opportunity with Ground Score was also started this year. The City’s Impact Reduction Program staff turned to the organization to take on management of a laundry facility launched late this summer. The facility is still in pilot program operations with the full scope of work yet to be determined, but it’s an exciting development that will create several new jobs and will focus on serving people experiencing homelessness while keeping textile waste out of the landfill.