Recycling and social technologies for sustainability: The Brazilian experience of wastepickers’ inclusion in selective collection programs

BACKGROUND: Alternatives are being developed for waste treatment all over the world. Solidary selective collection is a recognized social technology for taking millions of people out of absolute poverty. However, this technology raises crucial questions regarding its nature and development perspective. What can be said of the legitimacy of a social technology that is born from misery and maintains wastepickers in precarious work conditions? OBJECTIVE: This article approaches issues based on the analysis of the wastepickers’ work process, highlighting the difficulties and interpersonal conflicts, the strong social bonds and creativity that reveal the potential of efficiency and solidarity of this social technology. METHODS: The analyses are founded on empirical descriptions of work situations and organizational arrangements that the wastepickers themselves have developed. The observations were made during the work, followed by interviews focused on significant events and behaviors. RESULTS: The contradiction between efficiency and solidarity, which excludes workers from the formal labor market, finds in the associations a solution for people with different capacities. This social technology offers much more than simple survival or exoticism. The wastepickers create a sustainable mode of production, putting together economic, social and environmental criteria in an innovative and fair production technology.