Some of this promise can be seen in the case of waste pickers, where efforts for greening work have gone beyond patchy skill development to address informality and marginalization. But in developing and emerging economies, an estimated 15 to 20 million waste pickers, many of them women and children, driven into this work by poverty, reclaim reusable and recyclable materials from what others have discarded, providing an essential environmental service in areas experiencing rapid urbanization with limited public services (ILO, 2012, Samson, 2009). The work is largely informal, the earnings low and unstable, and it is typically associated with strong social stigma and very poor, even hazardous working conditions (ILO, 2012). For example, 20-50 million tons of electronic waste, containing valuable metals, are discarded each year, with much of the discarded equipment exported to countries such as China and India for dismantling.