Introduction It is estimated that between 15 to 20 million people in the world recover materials from waste in an informal condition. Many living in poverty, become involved in the activity because they do not have an accessible job opportunity. This need leads them to be exposed to unhealthy, dangerous environments, with a high risk of injury due to the lack of control measures in risk factors.

Objective To describe the health and working conditions of waste pickers worldwide, through a review of scientific articles published between the years 1999 to 2019.

Methods A scoping review was carried out, where scientific articles were identified by manual bibliographic search in PubMed, Taylor and Francis, ScienceDirect and SAGE. The Mendeley bibliographic manager was used to refine the articles. The review of the records was based on: type of document, reading of titles, abstracts, methodology and results. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were taken into account for the selection of articles.

Results Eight-eight studies were included that met the inclusion criteria. Most of the studies analyzed used a qualitative approach, where questionnaires, interviews and focus groups were applied. Waste pickers’ working conditions were mainly associated with situations present in the work environment, non-working conditions are largely associated with their economic, family and interpersonal relationships. The individual conditions with the highest incidence are associated with gender, age and education. The health conditions are related to the physical capacity of the waste picker to carry out the work, the consumption of tobacco and other substances and the prevalence of some diseases such as tuberculosis and skin rashes.

Conclusion It is important to expose to the academic and governmental community the problems that waste pickers face in the development of their work in order to establish tools to improve the health and working conditions of this vulnerable population.