Inclusion of Waste Pickers Into Municipal Waste Management Systems: A Comparison Between Colombia and Brazil

• Author: Nathalia Silva de Souza Lima Cano,Ana Julieth Calderón Márquez,Emília Wanda Rutkowski
• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/10704965211053425
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

The Journal of Environment &

Development

2021, Vol. 30(4) 395–425

© The Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10704965211053425

journals.sagepub.com/home/jed

Inclusion of Waste Pickers

Into Municipal Waste

Management Systems: A

Comparison Between

Colombia and Brazil

Ana Julieth Calderón M´

arquez

1,2

,

Nathalia Silva de Souza Lima Cano

1

, and

Em´

ılia Wanda Rutkowski

1

Abstract

This article aims to identify and comprehend the challenges and strengths behind public

policies on integrating waste pickers (WPs) within waste management systems in Colombia

and Brazil. In both, WPs started to come together and found organisations and external agents

such as NGOs began to support organised groups of WPs. After 10 years of judicial court

actions in Colombia, WPs organisations were f‌inally recognised in legislation, while in Brazil,

they were recognised in 2007 in one of the national policies through lobby. Today, there are

almost 700 WPs organisations formalised in Colombia and 1700 in Brazil. Their public policies’

main achievements and challenges are exposed to supply knowledge to other countries

interested in this theme. A Roadmap for the organisation and formalisation of WPs within

waste management systems was created. This constitutes a source of information for pol-

icymakers in other emerging economies to address this in their territories.

Keywords

circular economy, sustainability, municipal waste management, informal recycling

sector, Latin America

1

FLUXUS, Laboratory on Urban and Socio-Environmental Sustainability Teach Learning, Department of

Sanitation and Environment Studies, School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Studies,

UNICAMP—University of Campinas, SP, Brazil

2

Energy Systems Planning Program, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Campinas, UNICAMP,

SP, Brazil

Corresponding Author:

Ana Julieth Calderón M´

arquez, UNICAMP, Cidade Universit´

aria Zeferino Vaz - Barão Geraldo, Campinas

13083-872, Brazil.

Email: anajcmarquez@gmail.com;a191357@dac.unicamp.br

Introduction

The traditional take-make-use-dispose characterise the linear economy, causing de-

pletion of our stock of f‌inite natural resources and increasing solid waste generation

worldwide. This situation has an impact on the capacity of our planet to provide a safe

habitat for living beings (Iacovidou et al., 2017;Steffen et al., 2015). The circular

economy has been discussed as a directive to guide society in the maximum utilisation

of resources, or the reinsertion of recyclable materials within the economic production

cycle a major concern for governments globally (Iacovidou et al., 2017;Kirchherr et al.,

2017;MacArthur, 2013;Reike et al., 2018).

Recycling materials is seen as a solution; however, its development depends on

a supply chain that involves different processes and actors. In most countries of the

Global South, this chain includes informal waste pickers (WPs), also called informal

recycling sector (IRS), who are often seen as a societal problem (Scheinberg &

Simpson, 2015). In this regard, policy measures that governments must establish in

relation to the IRS are a controversial and recurring issue within the modernisation of

municipal solid waste management (Rutkowski & Rutkowski, 2015).

Among the factors behind the growing number of low-income and socially vul-

nerable people engaged in informal recycling in low- and middle-income countries are

economic crises and country’s level of development (O’Higgins, 2017); absence of

formal employment opportunities; low educational attainment (Barford & Coombe,

2019); and the lack of adequate infrastructure for waste management (Hartmann, 2018),

factors that increase the challenge for these countries, which do not know how to deal

with this issue. Several authors highlighted that the activities carried out by the IRS

improve the social, economic and environmental indicators of municipal solid waste

management (Coelho et al., 2011;Ezeah et al., 2013;Gonçalves-Dias & Teodósio,

2006;Guarnieri et al., 2020;Navarrete-Hernandez & Navarrete-Hernandez, 2018;

Pacheco et al., 2012;Rutkowski & Rutkowski, 2015,2017;Velis et al., 2012;Wilson

et al., 2009). Fortunately, WPs have been organising with the help of third parties and

have encouraged governments to regulate their integration into the municipal waste

management sector as a solution (Aparcana, 2017;Lima & Mancini, 2017;Masood &

Barlow, 2013;Navarrete-Hernandez & Navarrete-Hernandez, 2018;Paul et al., 2012;

Sandhu et al., 2017;Scheinberg et al., 2016;Sembiring & Nitivattananon, 2010). The

term ‘integration’is widely used in the f‌ield, and it usually means that organised WPs

have been accepted by the local authority and could have some kind of agreement with

the municipality, hence its use in this paper. Other terms (e.g. legalisation, reconcil-

iation and formalisation) are interchangeably used (Scheinberg et al., 2016) and

a formal def‌inition of each term is yet lacking. WPs’integration requires the design,

implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies that aim socioeconomic

inclusion of WPs within municipal waste management systems (Abruzzese & Bandura,

2017;Aparcana, 2017;de Oliveira et al., 2019;Fei et al., 2016;Navarrete-Hernandez &

Navarrete-Hernandez, 2018;Rutkowski, 2020;Sellitto, 2018;Steuer et al., 2018).

Research on how integration of the IRS takes place in different low-income and

middle-income countries is growing (Aparcana, 2017;Gall et al., 2020;Scheinberg,

396 The Journal of Environment & Development 30(4)