Cooperpires: The Recycling of Citizenship
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LargeCooperpires: Recycling Citizenship
Around the world, informal recycling cooperatives are changing the face of the urban landscape. In Ribeirão Pires, next to São Paulo, Brazil, a small community comes together to recover materials from the waste stream and, in return, their simple act becomes an invaluable service to waste management and resource recovery. In São Paulo, like in many communities around the globe, recycling has become a widespread survival strategy for those who are poor and socially excluded. Impacted by poverty and socially marginalized, the informal collection of recyclable waste allows many people to generate an income, while reducing the amount of waste that would otherwise be going to the dumps and landfills, as well as polluting the natural environment. The example of Cooperpires, the cooperative in Ribeirão Pires, highlights the importance of building partnerships between local businesses, the government, and the wider community in recovering resources. It also shows the difficulties and hurdles the recyclers have to face in order to strengthen their activity and escape poverty.
University of Victoria geographer Dr Jutta Gutberlet is the Canadian leader of a $1 million Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)-funded project to expand community-based recycling in Brazil. The project focuses on participatory waste management as an opportunity to generate income and to improve the quality of life of informal recyclers—called ‘catadores’ which translates to ‘collectors’—while promoting environmental sustainability and inclusive integrated waste management public policies. The project directly addresses environmental sustainability and social exclusion and adopts appropriate capacity-building strategies and policies to tackle urban poverty.
The four municipalities involved in the project are home to about 12 million people and have varying degrees of recycling activity and support from local governments. The informal waste sector comprises several thousand people, approximately half are women who are rarely officially recognized as contributing to the waste management system. More than 10,000 people are homeless in São Paulo and it is estimated that 5,000 people depend primarily on informal recycling to survive. Despite these contributing efforts, up to 90 per cent of waste still ends up in landfills.
The project team seeks to build on established contacts with local groups, governments, and NGOs to document this experience in community recycling. They hope that this experience will empower the recyclers and promote the continuation of the necessary support from the local community.
The research is embedded in the above mentioned CIDA-funded University Partnership project on participatory sustainable waste management and it envisions the expansion, organization, and support of existing capacities within the recycling sector. This is done through training, empowerment, strengthening of organizational structures, and raising public awareness. Additional value to recyclables can be gained through increasing the effectiveness and safety of the collection, separation, stocking, and collective sale of recyclables. In the long term, the project aims to improve the quality of the urban environment through increased public awareness, the strengthening of collective recycling initiatives, and participation in official recycling programs in Brazil and other countries. The project works in collaboration with multiple partners and stakeholders who are tackling the goals of reduced waste generation, increased resource recovery, and just income distribution.
Contacts
Dr Jutta Gutberlet (University of Victoria, Geography) at (250) 472-4537 or juttag@uvic.ca
Website: www.geog.uvic.ca/pswm/
Useful Links
Waste (Netherlands): An excellent resource for information on projects related to poverty alleviation and urban sustainable development. It is affiliated with organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
www.waste.nl
Waste-Econ (Toronto): A University of Toronto CIDA-funded project studying the waste economy in Asia that provides enhanced earnings and working conditions while promoting sustainability, waste reduction, and recycling. www.utoronto.ca/waste-econ
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP): A useful resource on global and national waste trends.
vitalgraphics.grida.no/waste/index.html
Binning for Resources: Perspectives from Vancouver’s Waste Management Trap-line
Binning: It might be an uncommon term, but it has become a common activity in the city of Vancouver. Binning, or informal recycling, is not only reducing the amount of recyclable waste heading to the dump but is also providing a vital income base for many marginalized Vancouver urbanites. Adopted for a variety of socio-economic reasons, individuals relying on income from waste recycling are making their mark on the city, a mark that is quickly proving the value sustainable innovation plays in protecting the environment and the inner-city community.
The United We Can bottle depot, a social enterprise located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, is a successful example of an urban community recycling program that promotes social inclusion. Established in 1995, United We Can now serves thousands of inner-city residents, recycles millions of containers each year, and has distributed millions of dollars into the local economy through bottle deposit refunds. It’s estimated that 1,500 binners come to the United We Can bottle depot and up to 600 recyclers use its services daily. The majority of the recyclables being recovered throughout the city are found primarily in residential dumpsters and street bins or, in many other cases, on the curbs during garbage collection.
The diverse range of individuals involved in recycling reveals the significance of this activity as the final economic safety net for many. Recycling generates primary income for many homeless individuals and provides opportunities to supplement social assistance. The number of individuals involved in binning, and the volume of materials being recovered, significantly increases during the summer, at the end of the month, and on weekends: a reflection of the increased consumption of beverage containers during those times.
Productivity varies dramatically among binners, from microentrepreneurial-style businesses with employees to full-time, year-round binners. At the lower end of the productivity scale are those that are faced with multiple physical and mental barriers. Binning often provides access to financial resources for individuals with a multitude of diverse needs and capabilities.
In Vancouver, there are some areas that have limited or no access to recycling services and, as a result, a significant amount of recyclable material ends up in the waste stream. Change is looming in many of these areas, however, and it is becoming common for residents to leave bottles out for collection at regular pick up times or to hold bottles for binners to retrieve in exchange for services such as lane cleaning, sweeping, or security. These increasingly widespread partnerships between residents and recyclers are not only improving the working conditions and validation of this activity, but they are also bringing about environmental consciousness and more efficient resource recovery.
Documenting the process of resource recovery and the diversity of individuals involved is contributing to a more complete understanding of the potential policy implications that could negatively impact the binning population. As well, increased awareness from the public is encouraging more efficient resource recovery, ultimately improving the health implications posed from this activity and the perception of this population.
This research project seeks to provide a voice for informal recyclers in the hopes that this activity may be further recognized by government, industry, and society as a legitimate and valuable service to waste management. The project will contribute to the elaboration of a framework for community-based recycling organizations, both in Canada and abroad, helping to recover resources and alleviate poverty.
Contact
Crystal Tremblay, Graduate student (University of Victoria, Geography) at crystalt@uvic.ca
Links
United We Can: Recycling depot located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
www.unitedwecan.com
Encorp Pacific: Federally incorporated not-for-profit stewardship corporation working to recover beverage containers from consumers.
www.encorpinc.com
