Today, one of the emerging and expanding social issues in the big cities of Iran is the phenomenon of littering, which has faced various challenges in urban life. These challenges have severely affected people's lives, family foundations and urban management. The purpose of the upcoming research is to investigate the formation process of waste collection in the city of Ahvaz. In order to achieve this goal, an in-depth interview was conducted with 22 waste collectors in Ahvaz city using grounded theory method and targeted sampling method with theoretical sampling strategy. The findings include 12 subcategories. housing challenges, family livelihood crisis, pressure from friends and inflammatory environment, lack of sufficient and stable institutional support, cultural poverty intensifying livelihood poverty, emotional tensions within the family, the basis for the formation of a self-governing livelihood strategy, the struggle for the survival of the family livelihood, physical consequences, spiritual, environmental, social and security, 5 main categories; Economic desperation, structural pressure, tension-causing cultural background, adopting a self-governing livelihood strategy and numerous consequences of the phenomenon of littering and a main category under the title of the phenomenon of littering as a generator of social tension. The results of the research show that the process of forming the phenomenon of littering starts from family economic and cultural backgrounds and is intensified by structural pressures. In such a situation, the garbage collectors adopt a self-managed livelihood strategy that they work in garbage collection as individuals, groups or families. They reduce the concept of scavenging to an accessible independent occupation, and the consequences of such an act are physical, psychological, environmental.