Waste Pickers Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This study was commissioned by Practical Action Nepal Office, under the PRISM (Poverty Reduction of Informal Workers in Solid Waste Management Sector) project. Practical Action aims to reduce poverty in developing countries by introducing appropriate technologies for the communities, demonstrating results, sharing knowledge, building capacity to replicate and influencing others for scaling up. Through the PRISM Project, Practical Action aims to improve the living conditions of the informal waste workers (IWWs) and enhance the social protection of the vulnerable groups dependent on solid waste for their livelihoods in five municipalities of Kathmandu Valley. As a part of the PRISM Project, Practical Action commissioned two country studies of Social Protection for Informal Waste Workers. The first study was commissioned for Philippines and the second study for India. The studies were to be based solely on existing secondary sources . It is expected that the study of policies and practices in India and the lessons emerging from it would help Practical Action advocate better policies and practices in Nepal, thereby leading to better social protection for IWWs in Nepal.

- by Catherina Schenck
- •
- Poverty, Unemployment, Informal Economy, Waste Pickers

The informal economy is typically understood as being outside the law. However, this article develops the concept 'social uses of the law' to interrogate how informal workers understand, engage and deploy the law, facilitating the development of more nuanced theorizations of both the informal economy and the law. The article explores how a legal victory over the Johannesburg Council by reclaimers of reusable and recyclable materials at the Marie Louise landfill in Soweto, South Africa shaped their subjectivities and became bound up in struggles between reclaimers at the dump. Engaging with critical legal theory, the author argues that in a social world where most people do not read, understand, or cite court rulings, the 'social uses of the law' can be of greater import than the actual judgement. This does not, however, render the state absent, as the assertion that the court sanctioned particular claims and rights is central to the reclaimers' social uses of the law. Through the social uses of the law, these reclaimers force us to consider how and why the law, one of the cornerstones of state formation, cannot be separated from the informal ways it is understood and deployed. The article concludes by sketching a research agenda that can assist in developing a more relational understanding of the law and the informal economy.

- by Melanie Samson
- •
- Critical Legal Theory, Urban Informality, Informality, Waste Pickers
- by Monique Jordaan
- •
- Human Rights, Waste Pickers, COVID-19 lockdown

O conceito de políticas públicas abrange a busca por soluções aos problemas ou questões comuns à coletividade, requerendo-se que seu ciclo envolva a inserção de suas propostas na agenda governamental. As políticas com temáticas voltadas aos catadores de materiais recicláveis e à economia solidária (ES) passaram por períodos e instrumentos distintos com relação à inserção, priorização e desmonte na agenda federal brasileira. Ainda assim, eles têm em comum a existência de mobilizações e participação populares na elaboração e busca da efetivação de suas políticas públicas. Definiu-se como objetivo apresentar uma síntese das principais políticas e dispositivos legais que abordam ou abordavam temáticas relativas aos catadores de materiais recicláveis e à ES. Realizou-se uma análise documental utilizando-se a técnica da análise categorial temática, cujos conteúdos resultantes foram apresentados, descritivamente, em cinco cenários político-governamentais: Pré-Lula; Lula; Dilma; Temer e Bolsonaro. Observa-se que, atualmente, os catadores de materiais recicláveis encontram maior respaldo na Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos, não se percebendo mais relações legislativas com a ES no âmbito federal. Pelo desenvolvimento do cenário relacionado à presidência de Bolsonaro, que apresenta imobilidade e retrocessos político-sociais, além de criminalização de minorias e movimentos sociais, entre os quais se inclui o Movimento Nacional de Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis, encontra-se uma possível explicação para tal condição. Já as políticas de ES, passando também por processos de desmontes, teve suas atribuições transferidas para o Departamento de Inclusão Produtiva Urbana do Ministério da Cidadania, não havendo mais um setor específico para ela. O único instrumento que legalmente abrangia uma intersecção entre os temas, o Plano Nacional de Economia Solidária (vigência 2015-2019), não teve continuidade, sendo que o mesmo aconteceu com as ações da extinta Secretaria Nacional de Economia Solidária (Senaes). A progressiva dissolução da Senaes e de suas ações, entre os governos de Michel Temer e Bolsonaro foi um dos mais expressivos impactos desta temática. Conforme a construção destas políticas ocorreu, principalmente, entre os governos Lula e Dilma com expressiva participação popular, considera-se que as atuais tendências ideológicas governamentais não abarcam as solicitações construídas participativamente pela população brasileira como importantes direcionamentos para a elaboração e implementação de políticas.

- by Letícia Dal Picolo Dal Secco de Oliveira and +1
- •
- Municipal Solid Waste Management, Waste Management, Waste Pickers

This article explores the relationship between precarity, waste, and the ragpicker in contemporary Chinese visual culture. It asks first why precarity has come so little and so late to the theoretical scene in China, a society in which precarious experience is so rife as to be almost endemic. The essay then goes on to show how some of China’s leading artists now work profusely with refuse – as a core theme of the precarious present – while noting the strange anomaly that their works offer up scant if any space for the figure of the waste picker. The artist, instead, has taken over her mantle as the sifter and sorter of garbage. This missing human figure matters, in part because waste is always about people – and their absence from aesthetic space suggests that art is responding to a felt sense that personhood is coming under assault as basic life sureties fray. But I also argue that the garbage takeover is part of a sustained practice of appropriation, effacement, even cruelty in the artistic representation of precarity in China. China’s wasteworks are art forms born at the tense interface between different class actors, and they disclose fraught fears over where brittle life experience begins and ends in a society which has tried to eliminate class as a category of political action and analysis.

- by Margaret Hillenbrand
- •
- Class, Precarity, Chinese Cinema, Garbage

Os catadores de material reciclável são trabalhadores urbanos que utilizam do refugo da sociedade de consumo para subsidiar um processo produtivo interno à economia urbana. Alguns catadores encontraram na formação de cooperativas e associações um modelo de organização do trabalho com melhores condições e renda. Outros catadores atuam nas ruas configurando uma atividade fora do espaço das Associações e Cooperativas e não reconhecidos pelo poder público. O aumento de pessoas na rua realizando coleta de recicláveis e a limitação do atual modelo de inclusão são aspectos problemáticos que precisam ser analisados. O objetivo do trabalho é compreender as estratégias desse grupo de trabalhadores que atuam na coleta seletiva informal nas ruas da cidade de Belo Horizonte. A tese defendida aqui é que não há um caminho único para a inclusão, é preciso construir coletivamente alternativas que orientem o diálogo e a cooperação para além dos muros das cooperativas e associações. O percurso metodológico utilizado para coleta de dados foi realizado através de observação participante, etnografia, curso da ação e GroundedTheory. Esse percurso permitiu uma aproximação maior dos sujeitos e um entendimento mais imerso de sua prática. Os resultados encontrados demonstram uma diversidade significativa da atividade e configurações diferentes do trabalho de catadores de rua e que os mesmos não são excluídos, pois são integrados ao mercado dos recicláveis de maneira informal. Os catadores de rua e os catadores organizados, dessa forma, fazem parte de um sistema produtivo realizando atividades que se complementam em um elo fundamental na cadeia produtiva da reciclagem. Dessa maneira, a pesquisa conseguiu trazer questões relevantes para discussão sobre os catadores de rua a partir da própria experiência deles e com a diversidade do trabalho se almeja diversidade de caminhos para cooperação entre os atores.

Why do central and local government initiatives aiming to curb the proliferation of garbage in Beijing and its disposal continue to be unsuccessful? Is the Uberization of waste picking through online-to-offline (O2O) garbage retrieval companies able to decrease waste and improve the lives of waste pickers? Most citizens of Beijing are well aware of the fact that their city is besieged by waste. Yet instead of taking individual action, they sit and wait for the governments at various levels to tell them what to do. And even if/when they adopt a proactive position, this does not last. Official education drives targeting the consumers are organized regularly and with modest success, but real solutions are not forthcoming. Various environmental non-governmental organizations are at work to raise the level of consciousness of the population, to change individual attitudes towards wasteful behavior, but seemingly with little overall effects.

- by Stefan Landsberger
- •
- Environmental Education, Chinese Studies, Contemporary China, Beijing

Three research groups from Vital Ocean, TriCiclos and Hasiru Dala, traveled to four countries: India, Indonesia, Brazil and Chile to interview 45 pioneering waste and recycling organisations to deconstruct how they overcame the most difficult, and universal challenges facing all frontline waste and recycling programs –(1) behaviour change at scale, (2) waste picker inclusion, (3) affordable waste collection, (4) recycling plastics economically, and (5) processing organic waste without a loss. Their insights are synthesised in a new book, Leave No Trace: Vital Lessons from the frontline of waste and ocean plastic, which provides practical, field tested solutions and business models to build resilient waste and recycling programs The book is available below for free and in four languages – English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Bahasa Indonesia, to bring these insights to a broader audience. https://www.vitalocean.org/book-download

- by Kaustubh Mani Sengupta
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- Urban Planning, Migration Studies, Partition of India, Kolkata

Authors Sonia Maria Dias is a sector specialist at WIEGO. She is a sociologist by training and a garbologist with specialization in Solid Waste Management by the University of Kitakyushu, Japan. She has been active in the waste management field in Brazil since 1985 with a focus on promoting the integration of social inclusion aspects into the technical planning of waste collection and recycling. Her PhD thesis in Political Science is on the role of participation in solid waste management in Brazil. She is based in Belo Horizonte, Southeast Brazil. Melanie Samson is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Africa Waste Sector Specialist for WIEGO. She has a PhD in Political Science from York University. Her research focuses on the relationship between waste and value and on how analysis of the work and lives of informal workers allows for the development of theorizations of the economy and polity more relevant to postcolonial contexts.

- by Melanie Samson
- •
- Waste recycling, Informal Economy, Municipal Services, Waste Pickers

It is no news that waste generation is on the increase, making it more problematic for governments to manage. In the global south, the informal recycling sector has become notable for its contributions to municipal waste management through resource recovery, as shown by the current body of research. However, due to the seemingly well-organised waste management system, the existence and roles of this sector in municipal solid waste management in the global north are largely under-documented. Using a community-based research methodology and applying mixed methods, we examined the roles of the informal recycling sector in municipal waste management in Vancouver, British Columbia as well as their level of participation in decision-making. Results demonstrate that the sector enhances waste diversion and recovery efforts and works in collaboration with the city government as well as other stakeholders. The study also shows that informal recyclers (locally called binners) participate in some level of decision-making processes such as the Single-Use Item Reduction Strategy; however, their participation in other key waste management decisions including the City's Recycling Bylaw remains challenging, which significantly impacts their day-today survival. We, therefore, highlight the need for a transformative participatory policy/ decision-making process to promote more harmonious and inclusive municipal waste management.

- by Jutta Gutberlet
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- Recycling, Municipal Solid Waste Management, Waste recycling, Waste Management

Mémoire de recherche en Master 1 en Urbanisme et Aménagement du Territoire dans l'Université Sorbonne Panthéon - Paris I. Travail scientifique sur les récupérateurs informels de déchets et leur place dans les espaces physiques et sociaux... more

- by Claraluz Kaiser
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- Solid Waste Management, Cape Town, Informal Sector, Waste Pickers

Contemporary approaches to waste management in South Africa have been driven by a desire to modernise and cleanse urban public spaces. Even though street waste pickers provide a separation-at-source service, thereby minimising waste to landfill, these people and their work continue to be stigmatised. Using Goffman’s theory of stigma and impression management, this study establishes how evident stigma is in the agency of waste pickers. Agency was conceptualised using Emirbayer and Mische, to identify the management of stigma in waste pickers’ choices, regarding established routines, future plans and their practical evaluation of ongoing circumstances. Following Giddens, stigma is posited as a source of both enablement and constraint to waste pickers’ agential capacity. A social constructionist theoretical approach, combined with an interpretivist epistemology, was used to gather qualitative data using ethnographic methods. The first of its kind in this field, participatory fieldwork was conducted with waste pickers over the course of a year. Using a combination of thematic and discourse analysis the findings showed that stigma emerges in an insidious manner.
To overcome being stigmatised by their physical appearance, waste pickers use an idealised presentation of self to position themselves as superior to criminals, illegal drug users and poor working classes. Although the capacity to overturn negative stereotypes was constrained because waste pickers were often unable to confine discrediting behaviour to back region spaces, the power of stigma was never absolute. Impression management enabled waste pickers to resist being positioned as matter out of place through their cultivation of relationships with residents and agents of social control. However, I argue that because these reciprocal relationships go largely unseen by the wider public, stigma continued to constrain the agential capacity of impression management strategies. The implication of the study is that, although agency is somewhat invisible, waste pickers are able to subvert the impact of policies designed to threaten their freedom of movement and access to waste. In achieving this, the unintended consequence is that waste pickers’ agency further entrenches the stereotypical discourses that position them and their work as a threat to order in Cape Town.

- by Teresa Perez
- •
- Stigma, Waste recycling, Impression Management, Cities

This paper analysis the formation of the National Movement of Recyclable Waste Pickers (Movimento Nacional dos Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis: MNCR) in Brazil and of its impacts on the right of cities to the homeless people. We use the categories of analysis offered by the theory of frames, mixing this approach with critical theories in social analysis about public sphere, discussions about urban space and political culture in Brazil, trying to offer new insights to understand the citizenship of homeless people in the Brazilian cities. Qualitative research based on documentary analysis, observation and in-depth interviews was carried out. Empirical research aimed to identify the main actors involved, describing their constitution, how and why they were engaged in the construction of the rights. The main results show that the formation of MNCR identity passes through the affirmation of their social identity as citizens and workers by assigning a value to the solid waste, as they spontaneous created a “waste picking economy” in the urban space. This also led to direct their actions to the government seeking to ensure public policies aimed at their integration into the economic and social scenario. An amplification of frames occurred, connecting their struggles with the environmental concerns of civil society and some market actors.

The involvement of informal workers in municipal service delivery is generally theorized and studied as a key component of a neoliberal privatization agenda that erodes both the public sector and the rights of workers employed within it. This is the predominant trend globally. However, in a range of cities across
the globe a different process is taking place as informal waste pickers are organizing collectively and demanding that they be formally integrated into municipal waste systems and fairly compensated for their labour. In these instances the incorporation of informal workers in service delivery has a different genesis and dynamic, and potentially has profoundly different political implications. This paper critically analyses
innovative approaches to including informal waste pickers in service delivery in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Pune, India and Bogota, Colombia. It argues that by mobilizing collectively to demand formal incorporation into municipal waste management systems waste pickers are expanding both the public sector and
the public sphere, transforming relations between the state, formal economy, informal economy, and residents, and contributing to the forging of a more inclusive, participatory, and democratic state. While recognizing the key role played by waste picker organizations, it also argues that the ways waste pickers
organize, the types of demands that they make, and extent to which they succeed in achieving their goals are shaped by a number of factors, including: the historical development and nature of the municipal waste management systems; the political orientation of the political parties in power locally and nationally;
national policy and legislation related to waste management as well as local governance; the strength and nature of broader social movements and how waste pickers relate to them; the extent and nature of support from government, NGOs and other civil society organizations; the political orientation of these
external supporters; and, ultimately of course, the political orientation, vision for the state, and strategic
and tactical decisions of the waste picker organizations themselves. The paper concludes by exploring
how such innovations in the waste management sector contribute to our understanding of how new political imaginaries for the state can be forged and achieved in the current conjuncture.

- by Melanie Samson
- •
- Waste Pickers

The culture of gang violence has become deeply entrenched in South Africa. The present study explored the experiences of non-gang school-going adolescents regarding gangs and gangsterism in Hanover Park in the Western Cape. A qualitative exploratory approach was used. Data collection instruments were focus group discussions supported by qualitative semi-structured interviews involving 18 adolescents between the ages of 16 and 18 from two secondary schools in Hanover Park, Cape Town. The data were thematically analysed. The results have shown that the presence of gangs affects the learners' school attendance, restricts their mobility, increases bullying at school and seriously disrupts family and community life.

- by Catherina Schenck and +1
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- Poverty, Unemployment, Informal Economy, Waste Pickers

Within South Africa's recycling economy, informal waste pickers (also known as reclaimers) generate immense value for local waste management systems by diverting waste from landfills. However, official municipal separation at source (S@S) programmes, that task residents with sorting recyclables from their waste for separate collection, have failed to integrate reclaimers' unofficial collection system. This dislocates reclaimers, forcing them to work on the margins of municipal S@S programmes and forge separate links with residents to maintain access to recyclables. Drawing on extensive qualitative research in Johannesburg, South Africa, this article reflects on how residents in three different residential neighbourhoods understood and interacted with reclaimers' unofficial collection system and the official S@S programme run by the city. Our findings suggest that five types of residents emerge: wasters (who did not see the value in recycling), agnostics (who did not care who collected their recyclables), enforcers (who actively prevented reclaimers from accessing recyclables), community integrators (who gave their materials to reclaimers); and competitors (who supplemented their own income by selling recyclables). We argue that residents and reclaimers play active roles in shaping official S@S on the ground, and cannot be ignored when developing S@S programmes. Furthermore, S@S and integration are inherently related, as they each target the same residents and the same recyclables, and therefore cannot be understood or addressed in isolation. Unless a specific commitment is made to integrate S@S, S@S becomes a reclaimer disintegration programme. These findings have broad implications for how S@S should be conceptualised, designed, and implemented.

- by Melanie Samson
- •
- Recycling, South Africa, Johannesburg, Waste Pickers

Yeni yoksulluk ya da kentsel yoksulluk kavramı, başta ekonomik olmak üzere, gündelik yaşama dair çeşitli sosyomekânsal paylaşımlardan yararlanamayan insanların dezavantajlılık durumlarını içermektedir. Kentsel yaşam pratiğinde; refah, adalet ve temsiliyetten mahrum kalmış bu dezavantajlı insanların önemli paydaşlarından biri de atık toplayıcılarıdır. Bu bağlamda, ilgili çalışmada, atık emekçilerinin gündelik yaşamda karşılaştıkları zorlukların neler olduğu, kente dair deneyim ve aidiyetlerine ilişkin ne tür yansımalar ve psikososyal etkilerin geliştiği ile ilgili sorulara cevaplar aranmıştır. Araştırmanın evreni Ankara'nın üç (3) metropol ilçesi (Altındağ, Çankaya ve Keçiören); örneklem grubu ise, bu ilçelerde atık toplayarak yaşama tutunan yetmiş (70) atık emekçisinden oluşmaktadır. Nitel araştırma tekniklerinden yüzyüze görüşme şeklinde gerçekleştirilen çalışmada elde edilen veriler, betimsel ve içerik analizi tekniğiyle çözümlenmiştir. Analiz sonuçlarına göre, atık emekçilerinin kentsel yoksulluğu, gündelik yaşama dair sosyomekânsal ilişkilerinde de deneyimledikleri tespit edilmiştir. Yeni yoksulluk kavramının ürettiği marjinallik, kentsel mekânla ilişki kuramama, dışlanma ve damgalanma gibi birtakım mekânsal ve psikososyal örselenmelerin geliştiği belirlenmiştir. Çalışmada, atık emekçilerinin karşılaştığı çoklu dezavantajlılık durumuna çözüm üretmek adına, geri dönüşüm sektörüne nasıl dâhil olabileceklerine ilişkin çeşitli önerilere yer verilmiştir.

Due to the prevailing economic crisis, Argentina has been facing a growing number of informal workers, many of them urban recyclers. Following the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated decline in formal employment, this number can be expected to rise even further. Increased recycling activity is, in principle, a positive development. However, the working conditions of urban recyclers often do not correspond to the ILO definition of “decent work”. It is therefore important to ask how the recycling system in Argentina can be shaped to be socially sustainable, as well as environmentally and economically sustainable. Based on qualitative stakeholder interviews, our research aimed to collect and synthesise the ideas and expectations of a diverse set of actors in the recycling sector of Buenos Aires City and selected municipalities of Buenos Aires Province. This enabled us to identify four key areas of dispute and potential action.
First, work in urban recycling is a form of social safety net in Argentina, as in many countries with persistent poverty.This can lead to a trade-off between maintaining the social function of the sector and subjecting it to the kinds of efficiency requirements placed on other sectors. Given the inherent power asymmetries between large companies and individual urban recyclers, the latter may be crowded out once the sector becomes profitable.
Second, it is important to avoid viewing urban recyclers as recipients of charity. By re-introducing materials into the resource cycle and reducing pressure on landfills, they create positive externalities and offer a valuable service to society. Paying urban recyclers for the service component of their work in addition to the value of the raw materials collected would constitute a significant step towards ensuring both decent incomes and broad social recognition of the workers’ value.
Third, the knowledge and experience gathered by urban recyclers holds great potential for grassroots innovations, such as making productive use of materials that do not currently have a market. With the cooperation of other actors, such as universities, and the provision of resources and support via the removal of red tape, these innovators could more easily employ their ideas to the benefit of society.
Fourth, as a cross-cutting issue, all solutions aimed at unlocking the potential of urban recycling for a transition of the waste sector towards economic, ecological and social sustainability require a careful navigation of the political economy dimension. Constellations of interests have led to incentives that are, in many cases, not conducive to economic efficiency and bind resources that could otherwise be used to improve recycling schemes. Reform of these incentives requires a careful analysis of power constellations and potential change coalitions.

- by Anna Pegels
- •
- Municipal Solid Waste Management, Argentina, Waste Pickers, Cartoneros

How did informal garbage collectors, who had long provided the only door-to-door and recycling services in Delhi, manage to survive the introduction of formal garbage collection trucks? This question raises the larger problem of why informal institutions - well-organized and socially recognized, but legally unauthorized and unregulated platforms for political and economic organization - have proven so persistent. I draw on evidence collected during 20 months of ethnographic research in Delhi, focusing on participant observation with informal collectors during their neighborhood routes and interviews with 50 informal collectors. Bringing together political and urban sociology, postcolonial urban studies, and institutional theory, the paper frames competition over city garbage and recycling as a relational matter. I argue that informal workers preserved their jurisdiction through practical legitimation, depending on everyday actions and social expectations rather than explicit laws or beliefs to secure legitimacy. I demonstrate how status-based relations, here based on caste and labor migration, can confer legitimacy and provide a source of regulation, as actors set out and meet implicit expectations for appropriate actions, relationships, and social boundaries.

- by Dana Kornberg
- •
- Institutional Theory, Institutional Change, Legitimacy, Caste and Untouchability

This dissertation examines how sections of the urban waste precariat, positioned in the City of Tshwane, responded to the formalisation and privatisation of the waste management system by the city’s public authorities. Focusing on two landfill sites, it consists of an ethnographic description and analysis of the nexus between waste makers, waste governors and the waste precariat, including waste-pickers. Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, the ethnography brings to light aspects and dynamics of the waste management system which are invisible to the waste governors. These include a typical instance of “accumulation by dispossession” (Harvey 2004, Samson 2012), which involved the closure of three municipal landfill sites and the relocation of a section of the city’s waste precariat to other landfill sites, as the state sought to capture the value of the waste generated by the waste makers in the city. Moreover, the closure of one landfill site located in the midst of a wealthy suburb also shows how this process of dispossession is constructed on older distinctions of race and class (Malan 1996, Ballard 2004). As those sections of the waste precariat move to another landfill they are confronted with new dynamics which include access to soft waste being controlled by an established waste-picker committee and city-supported cooperatives that have formed an alliance with the waste governors. As a result, the ‘newcomers’ are pushed into fringe recycling. This thesis contributes to the debate around the formalisation of waste picking in demonstrating how the process of formalisation, often pushed for and initiated by third sector organisations (Alexander 2009), engenders the exclusion of fringe recycling practices. As such this thesis contributes to a gap in the literature on fringe recycling, in the process also working towards portraying waste-pickers as a differentiated group. In theorising fringe recycling as part of the broader response of the waste precariat to formalisation and privatisation, this thesis deploys the concept of bricolage (Levi-Strauss 1966) in order to make sense of the creative and autonomous actions implied in improvisation. This emphasis on improvisation and creativity pushes the thesis into a consideration of ‘things’ (Ingold 2010) and the processes of formation, flows and the transformation of materials. Tracing the complex lines of flow and entanglement that exists between people and things in the context of landfill sites gives credence to the idea of a thing as a “gathering together of the threads of life” (Ingold 2010:2-3) and challenges our established understanding of agency and indeed the effort by Appadurai (1986) to theorise value through tracing ‘the social life of things’.

- by Pierre Reyneke
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- Bricolage, Waste Management, Precarity, Formalization

High generation of solid waste has been identified as one factor contributing to the world's environmental problems. The decrease in suitable landfill sites and scarcity of natural resources is creating greater demand for remanufacturing and reuse. This study aims to examine the contribution and issues embedded in scavengers group to achieved high rate of recycling in waste management program. In order to answer the research objective, this research utilized in-depth interviews conducted with scavengers group. This study revealed scavenging activity is an important element in waste management with positive impact on the economic and environment. Therefore, to support this, the scavengers group need to be part of the government's attempt to realise its recycling objectives.

- by Mohammad Tahir Mapa
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- Municipal Solid Waste Management, Waste recycling, Landfills, Waste Pickers

Unlike the private companies that runs the waste collection system the recovery and classification of waste carried out by cartoneros (waste pickers) in Buenos Aires metropolis has not yet been acknowledged as a " public service " (one of the main demands of cartonero organizations). Their work is based on the commercialization of recovered materials for the local and global recycling industry in a market defined by high levels of intermediation and incidence of monopolies in price formation. Consequently, levels of profitability attained in this first link of the chain are extremely meager, hence the importance of achieve value-adding issues becomes key for strengthen the economies of their organizations. Moreover, some public policy actions were oriented to address this goal by a so called process of "technification" of their working process. However, the results obtained so far, were not encouraging at all. Over more than a decade of the emergence of the cartonero phenomenon in Argentina, the technological features of their job have not shown significant changes. Most of them still focus on collecting and sorting as main activities, using very rudimentary tools and machines and obtaining a small profit if we consider the hard work they make on a daily basis. Departing from an ethnographic approach this article reconstructs and analyzes an " innovation " process developed by members of a cartonero cooperative in the Greater Buenos Aires. The project involves the recycling of industrial cellulose waste for manufacturing bricks and plates for housing construction. The core of my argument can be synthesized in the following question: what happens when an " innovation " process does not come from the contribution of specialized " technicians " , but responds to an experimental practice developed by the cartoneros themselves?. This shift at the level of the socially legitimate locus to produce " innovation " is analytically revealing for examining the contradictory dynamics in the construction of social relations deployed in this experience, focusing mainly on the tensions present in the institutionalization of the ongoing creative process.

The modernization (i.e. mechanization, formalization, and capital intensification) and enclosure of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems threaten waste picker livelihoods. From 2009 to 2013, a major development project, embodying traditional neoliberal policies with inclusive social policies , transformed the Managua, Nicaragua, municipal solid waste site from an open-air dump where as many as 2,000 informal waste pickers toiled to a sanitary landfill. To investigate waste pickers' social and economic condition, including labor characteristics, household income, and poverty incidence, after the project's completion, 146 semi-structured survey questionnaires were administered to four communities adjacent to the landfill and 45 semi-structured interviews were completed with key stakeholders. Findings indicate that hundreds of waste pickers were displaced by the project, employment benefits from the project were unevenly distributed by neighborhood, and informal waste picking endures due to persistent impoverishment, thereby contributing to continued social and economic marginalization and environmental degradation. The findings highlight the limitations of inclusive neoliberal development efforts to transform MSWM in a low-income country.

The collector of recyclable material emerges as a
profession consolidated in the XXI century, both
for its social necessity as by specific legislation.
Since 2002, it is registered with the Brazilian
Classification of Occupation (CBO). There are still
limited studies on these professionals and their
health needs. This report presents results of the
1st Meeting University - National Movement of
Collectors of Recyclable Materials, a World Café
workshop format, held at the Faculty of Medicine,
University of São Paulo. with the participation of
34 collectors, representatives of 16 cooperative
enterprises in the metropolitan region of São
Paulo. Field observation at the cooperatives were
performed previous to the meeting itself. The
information produced allowed the identification
a broad view of health of the collectors, involving
physical, economic, social and cultural aspects.
It was evidenced the use of the Unified Health
System (SUS) and social networks in their health
care. Collectors demonstrated to understand
their own value to environmental sustainability
and expressed expectations for the production of
knowledge about their health and their necessities
of health. The event inspired the formulation of
interdisciplinary research projects that generate
knowledge about the health of collectors, the
risks they face, and in proposing answers to their
health needs.

Introduction Infrastructure is often considered to be the pipes, roads and lines that traverse and connect spaces and supply basic services. Within our conceptualisation we look to a multidimensional understanding of infrastructure which goes beyond conventional notions and suggests, as Steele and Legacy do, that we need to extend the lens through which we see infrastructure: as relational; ecological ; as everyday practice; as inherently political; as embedded in questions of human and non-human justice and equity, fiscal transparency, institutional accountability. (Steele and Legacy, 2017: 2) Given the above definition, we investigate a range of infrastructures, which we understand to include systems, processes, people, practices and policies that interact with each other to embed and entrench inequality in cities. Central to our understanding of infrastructure is the underlying idea that, despite instincts to the contrary, decision-making regarding technology and its provision and maintenance are highly politicised processes that cannot be divorced from questions of identity, privilege and contestation. Such infrastructures are diverse. They look towards the role of history and historical forces; the collaborations and constellations of urban actors such as the market and the state; the politics of provision, as well as the legal frame, legislation and the law; and multilateral and international organisations and interests (Easterling, 2014). These infrastructures overlay and interact with questions of social status, political affiliations, identity and nationality. Zérah (2008) and Easterling (2014), in the Mumbai context, reflect on these questions of identity and positionality and agree with Heller that infrastructure "is structured by market forces" but persists with the idea that access to resources of all sorts are "organized through a whole range of categorical inequalities, such as race, class, gender, caste, nationality, and others"

- by Melanie Samson and +1
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- Urban Planning, Informal Economy, Urban Design, Waste Pickers

Waste governance is emerging as transdisciplinary and inter-sectoral approach to waste management and policy, overcoming primarily prescriptive engineering perspectives of waste. The process of governing waste involves the articulation of different structures, institutions, policies, practices and actors. Paying attention to issues of power, scale, and equity are important in the search for more democratic practices. Innovative forms of governance are emerging as decentralized, participa-tory and inclusive, focused on waste reduction and resource recovery. Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is an innovative alternative in generating work and income and a response in favor of social and labor inclusion. It can also be considered as a new, more humane and inclusive development model. With this article we aim to provide practical knowledge on the contributions of grassroots organizations and networks in waste management, supporting the discussion of waste governance in the context of the SSE. We present different experiences of waste picker organizations in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil to showcase their assets and to discuss prevailing challenges. Employing the SSE as a new development model allows us to address everyday issues of waste generation, management and governance in Brazilian cities and in other parts of the world; particularly from the perspective of organized waste pickers in associations, cooperatives and networks. This is a development paradigm which goes beyond just economic considerations, as highlighted with examples from waste management.

- by Jutta Gutberlet and +2
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- Municipal Solid Waste Management, Cooperatives, Waste Pickers

This article proposes to discuss the idea of design as unique and universal, presenting the advances of an ethnographic study carried out in a waste pickers cooperative located in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. Starting from the analysis of an ethnographic scene, we reconstruct the framework that is woven by the wastepickers experiences when customizing previously discarded materials and creating new technologies, enabling the development of an unique and alternative design. The scene begins when a local chemical company sends a batch of rolls of unused labels to the Cooperative’s work shed, which leads to a series of experiments and tests that entail the design and development of a high-strength rope. Thereby, the process of learning, and knowledge production and application, where performative bodies and senses come into play, propitiate that members of the cooperative (re)design the modes and locus of their own political existence in the field of waste management, disputing its place within the productive circuit of the company, to position themselves as expert actors in the sustainable management and treatment of industrial waste. In summary,the article focuses on the resignification process that involves the conversion of a discard material to a product prototype. In this way, waste picker´s design is a situated practice that responds to a specific reality and form of existence, and emerges to contest and disobey what has already been instituted and legitimized, consolidating as a fundamental political tool for the members of the Cooperative within the world of waste.

- by Sebastian Carenzo and +1
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- Design, Material Culture Studies, Political Ontology, Waste Pickers

In this paper we use income data of 873 street waste pickers in South
Africa to assess whether their income is suficcient to make a living and
to identify the possible factors that may influence their income. The
results can assist policy makers to make informed decisions in designing and implementing policies aimed at improving the street waste pickers’ income earning potential. The results of a linear and login regression analysis show that street waste pickers’ income is low and many of the street waste pickers in South Africa are trapped in persistent and chronic poverty. The findings further show that the only variables under the direct control of street waste pickers that may have a small positive effect on their income are the use of a trolley and the number of hours worked. Most of the variance in the daily income is explained by the prices of, access to, and the quality of recyclable waste collected over which the street waste pickers have little or no control. This leaves street waste pickers with little scope to improve their income and consequently their socio-economic conditions. Local governments can, however, create an environment and infrastructure in which higher levels of quality waste are made accessible to the street waste pickers.

- by Catherina Schenck and +2
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- Poverty, Unemployment, Informal Economy, Waste Pickers

While the circular economy (CE) is discussed in the global North as an innovative approach to waste management, the idea of circular resource flows has long been central in the work of waste pickers all over the world. They work independently or in groups, collecting, classifying, and reinserting a wide range of discarded materials into the economy. These grassroots initiatives have accumulated valuable knowledge and offer innovative perspectives on handling waste, informed and framed by their everyday experiences. Yet their efforts are hardly recognized as contributions to the circular economy, nor are most of the services they provide remunerated. Despite their precarious working and living conditions, waste pickers provide a specialized workforce, proven to be efficient in the reclamation of discarded and wasted materials, in reverse logistics such as extended producer responsibility (EPR) and service contracts involving municipalities and industries. With some exceptions, the organization of human labour that underpins the circular flows of matter and energy is an absent analytical dimension in most of the literature in this field. The dominant CE concept focuses primarily on environmental and ecological sustainability outcomes but lacks attention to social sustainability and livelihood aspects. Our paper bridges this gap in the literature by discussing results of qualitative research conducted in the metropolitan regions of São Paulo, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2017 and 2018, illustrating how waste picker organizations provide selective waste collection services to communities and businesses and thus contribute to resource recovery and social inclusion, at the heart of the CE.

- by Jutta Gutberlet
- •
- Solidarity Economy, Grassroots Movements, Grassroots, Circular Economy

Artigo defendido e aprovado no SIDISA 2012, 9º Simpósio Internacional de Engenharia Sanitária e Ambiental 11º Simpósio Ítalo-Brasileiro de Engenharia Sanitária e Ambiental (Milão – Itália, junho de 2012) - RESUMO Segundo relatório recente do Ipea, o Brasil ainda desperdiça anualmente cerca de R$ 8 bilhões, lançando materiais recicláveis em lixões, aterros controlados ou sanitários. Buscando reverter tal quadro, o Estado brasileiro vem estabelecendo normas, políticas e programas para valorizar e propiciar uma adequada gestão dos resíduos gerados como a Lei do Estado de Minas Gerais nº 18.031/09 e a lei Federal n.º 12.305/10, que estabelecem, respectivamente, as políticas mineira e nacional de resíduos sólidos. Neste contexto, destaca-se a inclusão, ao longo dos anos, dos catadores de materiais recicláveis como agentes desta importante política pública. As associações e cooperativas de materiais recicláveis atuam ao longo dos anos como exemplo do que se convenciona chamar atualmente de economia verde, em um modelo que promove a inclusão social, tirando diversas pessoas de condições indignas da catação em lixões, promovendo melhores condições de vida e resgatando a cidadania. O presente estudo busca apresentar uma linha evolutiva da inclusão destas associações e cooperativas na política ambiental brasileira, especificamente, na política pública brasileira de resíduos sólidos, desde as primeiras ações neste sentido até a aprovação das já citadas políticas nacional e estadual de resíduos sólidos, do Programa Pró-Catador e da lei mineira da Bolsa Reciclagem.

Resumen En este trabajo presentamos resultados de un análisis etnográfico realizado con habitantes del mayor relleno sanitario actualmente activo en el Gran Buenos Aires. Estas personas que se abastecían ingresando al basural, son quienes actualmente gestionan una de las " plantas de clasificación y separación " habilitadas dentro del relleno. El análisis sostiene la necesidad de recuperar los sentidos que estas personas conjugan para definir sus prácticas laborales, suspendiendo nociones preconstruídas como trabajo " informal " o " precario ". En particular destaca un sentido emergente por el cual estas labores de recuperación y clasificación de residuos adquieren la forma de un nuevo " oficio ". Nuestros datos señalan la necesidad de repensar en las etiquetas que circulan en el mundo del trabajo y que inciden en la configuración de políticas y programas. Abstract This article draws on ethnographic research carried out with neighbors of the biggest operational landfill in Buenos Aires, where one-third of the country's waste is buried. These people, who used to help themselves to supplies from the dumping grounds, now manage one of the " classification and separation plants " within the landfill area. The ways in which the plant workers themselves define the conditions and characteristics of their current working practices reveal the limitations of preconstructed notions of formality/informality in understanding these experiences. My analysis explores the way in which these practices of recovery and classification of waste have acquired the shape of a new " trade, " which is organized around the incipient consolidation of the recycling industry and which uses these materials as supplies. This research shows the need to rethink the labels that circulate around the world of work/labor and have a bearing on the shape of policies and programs.

O artigo é um estudo sobre políticas públicas voltadas à coleta seletiva operacionalizada por cooperativas de catadores de materiais recicláveis no município do Rio de Janeiro, identificando suas perspectivas e limites. Contextualizamos a Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos e a problematização que envolve as cooperativas de catadores. Situamos as regras gerais e indicações normativas das leis e decretos, planos e programas criados. Destacamos dados sobre a coleta seletiva no município do Rio de Janeiro. Por fim, apresentamos os resultados preliminares da pesquisa de campo realizada junto aos gestores de cooperativas. Apontamos, enfim, que as políticas públicas de coleta seletiva trazem instrumentos que não são percebidos em sua totalidade pelos atores envolvidos, o que implica a sua não pactuação e, por consequência, a não utilização plena das vantagens induzidas pela política.

- by Avril Joffe
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- Urban Planning, Informal Economy, Urban Design, Waste Pickers

Worldwide waste pickers work under deplorable conditions and are not recognized for their environmental and community services, by recovering and diverting recyclable materials from waste. Brazil has accumulated experiences of international relevance, particularly between 2004 and 2015, due to institutional and policy support for the Social and Solidarity Economy and the creation of a National Waste Pickers' movement. These conditions have favored the formation of new recycling cooperatives throughout the country. While there is still a wide spectrum of differences among these membership-based organizations, they also have many characteristics in common and share similar values and objectives. This research aims to demonstrate that when organized and supported by public policies and inclusive governance these groups are able to tackle several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article presents results of a case study, conducted over the period of 5 months in 2018, involving 21 waste picker cooperatives in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil. Data collection included the application of a questionnaire to the leaders of the 21 cooperatives and site visits to their facilities, including informal conversations with members. Data was collected at the cooperatives and involved note taking and voice recording. The data was transcribed and tabled for the subsequent content analysis. The results demonstrate the impacts of the work of organized waste pickers on SDGs (goals # 1, 5, 8, 11 and 12). The study shows how these groups address social, economic and environmental targets, how they build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities. Many cooperatives still operate under precarious conditions, suffering from weak government commitments and neglect or from the volatility of the economy. Public policies and participation in governance are instrumental in acknowledging waste picker organizations and remunerating their services to thus unlock their full potential to further the progress on the implementation of SDGs. Political will is paramount for waste pickers to become the champions in the transition to more sustainable development.

- by Jutta Gutberlet
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- Waste Pickers, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Este artículo presenta avances de una investigación etnográfica colaborativa en curso desarrollada con una cooperativa de cartoneros localizada en el Gran Buenos Aires. Evidencio cómo esta experiencia colectiva, que desarrolla habilidades de experimentación para reciclar materiales recuperados de residuos provenientes de hogares e industrias, se revela como un campo de acción que pone en cuestión tanto el concepto como el modo de aplicación de la noción de innovación social y tecnológica.

- by Sebastian Carenzo
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- Grassroots Innovations, Waste Pickers, Cartoneros, Tecnologías sociales