CATAUNIDOS Business Plan and my Future in Brazil

Ever since I decided to come to Belo Horizonte to study cooperatives of catadores, I knew that my goal was not simply to perform a year of research and leave. Rather, I wanted to lay the foundation for a more long-term participation, understanding this movement in general in order to figure out what role I could play in moving it forward. As my Fulbright draws to a close at the end of this month, the answer is finally beginning to come into focus. Although I was not accepted into the masters program I applied for at UFMG, I actually believe that this was for the best, as I have decided to stay in the area and focus my work with INSEA. I will be dedicating myself to a large challenge: creating and executing a new business plan for the CATAUNIDOS network.

Although CATAUNIDOS has existed for several years, in many ways we are starting from scratch in creating the cooperative. The idea of the network centered originally on the plastic processing factory, which is currently closed. During its short span of operation, the factory experienced numerous difficulties, stemming primarily from problems with establishing a functioning management structure and organizing efficient logistics for collecting material from the cooperatives and transporting the final product to buyers. The factory is currently closed for restructuring, and SEBRAE consultants are helping INSEA to devise a new business plan for the organization.

Talking with the SEBRAE consultants has been very helpful for me, as their analysis is very similar to mine, thus reassuring me that my thoughts about the future of CATAUNIDOS are not just personal opinion but legitimate business insight. In order to be successful, CATAUNIDOS must change its focus from industrialization (value-added plastic processing) to commercialization (logistics of coordinating sales among the cooperatives).

As I have explained before, the recycling industry has four main steps: source separation, collection, sorting, and transformation. Since the catadores already work together with local governments to handle collection and sorting (and encourage residents to source segregate materials), the logical next step was to enter into the transformation industry by setting up a materials processing factory that turned plastic into pellets. However, doing this skipped a crucial step. Actually getting material from the cooperatives to the industries that process materials is a huge undertaking in itself, requiring detailed systems of information control and logistics. This is currently done by the middlemen, who are able to gain huge profits simply by acting as the intermediaries between catadores and the factories. Trying to create a factory without first assuming the function of the middlemen is putting the cart before the horse. Instead of trying to increase income in the cooperatives by value-added processing, we should be trying to capture more of the value from commercialization, which in itself is a gold mine that can double or triple the price of recyclables for the catadores.

The most optimistic news regarding a commercialization venture is that we already know it is economically viable, given the success that middlemen have had in the market. In fact, the profitability of these enterprises shows that commercialization can work even without strengthening control of materials and information at the level of the individual cooperatives. Despite the organizational weaknesses of the organizations of catadores, middlemen still run dynamic businesses that sell their materials directly to industry.

Instead of trying to focus on developing economic autonomy at the local level, we can turn CATAUNIDOS into a commercially-viable umbrella organization that will provide organizational and financial support to the local cooperatives in a sustainable way. Once we have achieved this, we will be able to provide more support services to the local cooperatives from a stronger position. As a network of social enterprises overseen by a profitable commercialization venture, the cooperatives will be able to reduce their political dependency and have access to sustainable financing for infrastructure improvements and operating capital. Furthermore, we will be able to fund a more permanent and deeper participation by INSEA technicians within the enterprises, thus helping to simultaneously strengthen the groups from the grassroots, improving their management and working conditions, while giving them more leverage in their negotiations with municipal governments. This stands in sharp contrast to the situation today, where many cooperatives lack basic infrastructure and equipment and are completely dependent on ongoing financial and managerial support from government technicians and local NGOs.

There are, however, lots of challenges ahead to make this dream a reality. Creating a commercialization center to serve as a logistical hub for this new enterprise will require a lots of time, effort, and money. We will face stiff competition in the market from current middlemen, who will certainly have no interest in relinquishing the domination they currently have over the catadores. We will have to find talented, passionate personnel interested in helping to run this start-up. And of course, we will need a large initial capital investment to build a physical structure, purchase equipment (scales and presses, trucks, computers), and fund salaries for our workers. There is also the risk that the factory project, a large endeavor in itself, will become a major distraction that limits our ability to focus on commercialization.

Perhaps most challenging of all, we will have to develop an organizational structure that allows CATAUNIDOS to function as a regular, efficient business in the market while still maintaining its characteristics as a cooperative owned by the catadores. The relationship between the catador leaders, who will make up the advisory board, and the CATAUNIDOS technicians, who will actually run the business, will be complicated, and will certainly cause some uncomfortable questions regarding the catador-technician partnership. Having catadores as the owners (in essence, shareholders) but also the employees who perform the more onerous physical work, while the technicians serve as the managers, relates back to the “outsourcing management” problem I discussed earlier in my writing.

Overall, there is a lot of work ahead of us, and many profoundly difficult questions we must try to tackle. While I have no way of knowing how this initiative will turn out, I am very excited to help try and make it a reality. I will continue to post with regular updates about the project, and now that my Fulbright is ending, the new focus of this blog will not be general research reflections, but rather specific observations regarding the process we are making in turning CATAUNIDOS into a model social enterprise.

The Conveyor Belt Dilemma

One of the most common themes of this blog is the difficult trade-off between efficiency and social inclusion in the cooperatives, and how this relates to society in general. I want to briefly touch on one case that I believe exemplifies this dilemma: conveyor belts for sorting.

Since Henry Ford popularized them in factories in the early 20^th century, conveyor belts (and the ensuing doctrine of “Fordism”) have become the symbol of modern, capitalist manufacturing. They are the epitome of efficiency and control: automatic pace-setters that reduce tasks to dull monotony and turn the production line into one, smooth-running machine. To any casual observer, the beauties and evils of the conveyor belt are readily apparent.

In the recycling industry, conveyor belts for sorting materials have become a “best practice” among the large private companies. As this video shows, conveyor belts (especially state-of-the-art ones with automatic sorting features) are able to process large amounts of recyclables at a very rapid pace, relying on a team of workers to pick out specific materials that come past their station. This is much faster than the manual sorting (either on the ground or workbenches) commonly done by catadores. As the example of ITAURB shows, private companies in Brazil prefer conveyor belts to other alternatives for this very reason.

The best example of the supremacy of the conveyor belt is COOPERT, a CATAUNIDOS cooperative based in Itauna. The only organization in the network to employ a conveyor belt, COOPERT is able to process significantly more recyclables than any other group, thus giving its associates the highest average salary despite having some of the worst-quality materials. (According to a study by Dr. Lima’s team, the selective collection program in the municipality produces an 80% rejection rate, meaning that the grand majority of the material passing through COOPERT is, in fact, trash.)

A picture of the COOPERT conveyor belt:

If the conveyor belt is such an obvious boon to production, then how come it isn’t employed on a wider scale in the cooperatives? The answer is simple: many catadores cannot handle the rigors of this form of work. Many have physical disabilities or other issues that make work on a production line incredibly difficult. Others simply do not like the stress and monotony, or prefer to work at their own pace. Conveyor belts separate catadores into able and non-able individuals, replicating broader societal divisions caused by the labor market.

Conveyor belt technology represents a fundamental dilemma for the cooperatives. On the one hand, they allow the groups to increase their productivity, improving living standards and protecting the environment by processing more materials. On the other hand, they limit the ability of everyone to participate, as only the most able are fit to work on the production line, thus undermining the cooperative nature of the enterprise. Using the conveyor belt undermines the social mission of the group. Not using the conveyor belt undermines the economic and environmental mission of the group. Employing a mix (conveyor belt for some, hand-sorting for others), creates a two-tiered production system in the group, reinforcing inequalities.

I have a hard time solving the conveyor belt dilemma when I think about improving the situation at the cooperatives. A choice to use or to not use the technology must be made, but it seems nearly impossible to do so while still reconciling the economic, social, and environmental goals of the organizations. When even such a simple question as employing an industry-wide best practice becomes difficult, how is it possible to move forward?

Automation of Work and its Implications for the Future of the Labor Market

During my time here in Brazil, one thing I always notice is the amount of people doing jobs that are normally done in the U.S. by machines. One easy example is metro service. In the U.S., we normally buy our tickets out of machines that dispense change automatically, whereas in Brazil there are ticket counters run by attendants. Construction work here is also much more labor-intensive, employing a large workforce with little equipment, especially in terms of heavy machinery such as cranes and tractors. There is little doubt, though, that Brazil is steadily going the way of the U.S. by replacing workers with machines. Almost all bank interactions here are done through ATMs and large-scale farm equipment has radically reduced manual labor input in agriculture. Although rich countries have more money to employ machines on a much wider scale, developing countries are rapidly catching up. Across the world, the automation of work is changing human society in fundamental ways.

The use of machines is certainly nothing new to humanity. Since the beginning of civilization, we have steadily developed more-advanced tools to improve our productive capabilities and minimize our labor. In fact, it was just these sorts of technological breakthroughs that allowed the West to dramatically increase its production despite a small population during the 19^th century, leading to a huge divergence in material living standards compared to the rest of the world. With the advent of the digital age, information technology (computers, cell phones, the internet, etc) is once again revolutionizing our lives.

The benefits of the industrial and digital revolutions are obvious in many ways. As a society, we are now able to produce significantly more while doing much less work. This has clear benefits for individuals. A farmer no longer has to spend his entire life doing backbreaking labor in the field under a hot sun to produce a few basic foodstuffs. A construction worker no longer has to carry heavy brick back and forth, up and down stairs, to build a house. A ticket counter attendant no longer has to sit underground for eight hours a day, simply handing change back and forth. By replacing this work with machine inputs, we are freeing people from painful and unnecessary physical labor and dull, monotonous tasks.

But there is a flip side to these benefits. Under our current labor market paradigm, people need to work in order to take advantage of societal production. No job, no money. No money, no consumption. Although the ticket counter attendant may be saved from an unpleasant job, he or she is now in a worse position because they are unemployed. Instead of saving people from unnecessary work, automation thus condemns them to live within an economic system in which they cannot fully participate. (There is also the very legitimate question of undermining the dignity and accomplishment people can get from their work, which is often an emphasis of Marxist critique, but not the focus of this post.)

In political debates about jobs, globalization is the most common culprit. American factory workers lobby fiercely against free trade, blaming desperate Chinese or Indians for “stealing” their jobs. There is certainly no denying that a globalized labor market has led to some jobs leaving the rich countries, where labor costs are high. But studies show that automation has had a larger effect on employment figures across the world. Factory workers are not primarily losing their jobs because industry is moving to new, cheaper locations. Rather, they are losing their jobs because we are developing new machines that make human labor obsolete.

This trend will only continue to accelerate. A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute divided work into three broad categories: transformational (normally physical work involving building or making things), transactional (routine in-between jobs, such as bank teller or call center attendant), and interactional (using knowledge, critical thinking, and teamwork, usually to produce ideas or actions). Ever since the industrial revolution, machines have been able to replace many workers in transformational jobs, and it is just these sorts of jobs in the manufacturing center that are often at the center of political debates. But with the digital age and rapid improvements in computing and internet technology, transactional jobs are also in danger. ATMs and grocery store check-outs are obvious examples, but the potential goes much further. Any sort of work that can be reduced to a repetitive task, or a series of basic algorithms, is in danger. As artificial intelligence continues to develop, even lawyers’ and doctors’ jobs will be put in jeopardy. Eventually, the truly necessary, irreplaceable “interactional” jobs could be few and far between.

While the question of artificial intelligence raises many particular questions and worries of its own (think The Matrix), the more pressing issue to be dealt with is what the automation of work means for our economic societies. Overall, we should see this as an unequivocally good thing. Much of the world’s work is dull and tedious. If we can get the same results (or possibly better ones) without having to do any of the work, human society will be free of the bondage of constant labor. Who wouldn’t enjoy a permanent vacation?

Yet, within our current economic structure, this result would be a disaster. As we are already seeing in the rich countries of the world, automated work throws people out of jobs, destroying their ability to take advantage of societal production. The reason so many people around the world are willing to endure awful work conditions and horrendous schedules is simple: they need the money. In the U.S., the automation of work has slowly eroded away at middle class spending power, a fact temporarily masked by an enormous credit bubble forty years in the making, but laid painfully bare in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis.

In our shortsighted political climate we have desperately groped around for easy answers to the jobs crisis: repeal environmental regulations, simplify the tax code, or promote green energy (a good idea for other reasons, but certainly not a panacea for the jobs market). This is a moment in which we need to be asking ourselves a more fundamental question: what is the future of the world economy going to be when most of our work is done by machines, and jobs thus cease to be a source of income for all? (Whether they were ever a source of income for all is debatable in itself, considering the labor market has never achieved zero percent unemployment, but that’s a different story.) Will all wealth and power become concentrated in the hands of those who own the machines, or those whose unique cognitive abilities still gives them a useful skill to sell in the labor market? Or will we develop new systems in which consumption is no longer tied directly to production? Will the labor market cease to exist? And if so, what will replace it? How will we determine who has the rights to what goods and services?

It is very hard, if not impossible, to come up with answers to these questions. But I certainly find them far more relevant than the hot political topics of whether or not ozone standards increase unemployment, or whether new industrial policies could jump-start job growth, as if simple government actions could reverse a structural decline decades in the making. Ultimately, what we will need is an economic paradigm shift. While I do not know what it will look like, or when it will occur, I have no doubt that increased automation of work will eventually render our modern economic system obsolete. We need to at least start thinking about what will replace it.

On a more specific note, I want to mention that I spend a lot of time reflecting on the implications of work automation in the recycling sector, and the catadores in particular. As people who have long been shut out of the formal labor market, they are no strangers to these concerns. But even within this new sector they have created out of their own hard, physical labor, the dangers will ultimately arise. As government subsidies turn recycling into a profitable economic activity that attracts the formal sector (see my earlier post about reverse logistics), private businesses will enter the fray, and the catadores will find themselves competing not only with formal-sector workers but also trucks (which will replace the transport they do with their carts) and robot waste sorting machines (currently in experimental phases, although heavy-duty magnets are already commonly used to sort scrap metal). While new recycling processing technologies are a boon for the environment, they could ultimately undermine all the hard-earned progress made by the picker cooperatives I accompany here in Brazil.

ASMAC Project Update

In an earlier post, I discussed a project I am working on with two of Dr. Lima’s students to study the integration of new catadores into an association based in the city of Contagem, ASMAC. While the new sorting warehouse was officially inaugurated two months ago by the city government, various bureaucratic snags such as fire code approval have held up operations for now. Here are a few pictures of the new facility, and soon I will have better ones to share:

 Entrance to the new warehouse (green shirts are associates of ASMAC)

Materials will be unloaded in the 'silos' (up close, on the left), sorted, stored in holding bays (middle) and then loaded onto the trucks at the loading dock (on the right, the two open doors)

 View from the loading dock, silos and sorting benches in the background, with press and lift equipment up front

Isabel, ASMAC president, celebrates the inauguration and signing of the contract for use of the new warehouse with the mayor (in purple) and three of her advisers. 

So far we have focused our research on the current sorting warehouse in the Kennedy neighborhood, which is scheduled to be closed down and its members transferred to the new building. ASMAC is a unique case among associations because it has three separate warehouses that operate in large part as three separate units. The two other warehouses, in the CEASA business district and the Novo Riacho neighborhood, have the profile of street catadores who work autonomously, collecting and sorting materials with their carts and being reimbursed individually by the association, which basically functions as a unit of joint commercialization. This sort of cooperative is more similar to cooperatives in the U.S., which help to coordinate sales among individual producers such as farmers or taxi drivers, thus creating an umbrella organization and social support service that gives the appearance of being a single business.

The Kennedy group, on the other hand, has a profile more similar to other associations I have seen here. A team of workers based in a sorting warehouse receives material collected from trucks and establishes procedures to work together to sort, press, stock, and sell these recyclables. This sort of cooperative is entirely different; instead of merely serving as an umbrella organization to coordinate sales, it actually requires a cooperative effort in the entire production process and thus must promote the idea of the collective rather than the autonomy of individual catadores. The fact that these two very different forms of cooperative organization exist within one association complicates matters significantly. Another complicating factor is the fact that the association’s activities are coordinated almost entirely by a group of three technicians from a local Catholic charity, which gives it a significant administrative advantage in comparison to more catador-run cooperatives but also races complicated questions of hierarchy, ownership and participation.

For our coursework in Dr. Lima’s Qualitative Methodology of Work Analysis class, we are writing monthly reports on the situation in ASMAC. We submitted our last write-up last week, where we focused on five key points of analysis (that of course have a strong amount of overlap). Here, I will outline each of these areas:

1. Conflicts among personnel

The Kennedy group has developed a certain reputation for generating conflicts among associates. There is a close-knit family (a mother and several children) with a history of aggression and criminal problems as well as drug abuse who tend to intimidate the other catadores. One of these individuals admitted that “no one can stand us” and the accompanying INSEA technician told me that they have nicknamed the warehouse “the den of cobras” and that meetings often degenerate into shouting matches. This has led to high turnover within the group and a steadily diminishing number of associates, leaving only the problematic nucleus within the space. There is also a history of tension between the Kennedy members and the president of the association. These personal conflicts pose a significant challenge to the development of positive, productive collaboration. 

2. Sorting techniques and economic incentives

In order to streamline ASMAC’s activities, the Kennedy warehouse was established with a remuneration scheme equivalent to the CEASA and Novo Riacho warehouses, where catadores are reimbursed individually based on the amount of sorted materials they turn in to the association and other associates (“day-workers”) are paid fixed daily wages by the association to handle pressing, stocking, transportation and administration. While this scheme makes sense for autonomous collectors, it has created serious problems within the Kennedy warehouse. Sorters are paid based on the weight of sorted material, without rigorous oversight of the quality of sorting. As a result, they do not have an economic incentive to sort carefully, since they will be reimbursed equally regardless of the outcome of the sale of materials. Sorting can therefore be haphazard at times, and the day-worker that operates the press constantly complains about materials being mixed together (paper with plastic, for example).

The other issue is the disconnect between the association’s revenues and the wages it pays to the catadores. Although reimbursement is linked to the fluctuating price of materials (with an overhead 5 cent per kilogram charge to cover administrative costs), the association begins to owe payment to the catadores as soon as the material is weighed, regardless of the outcome during pressing, transport, and sale. If any problem arises in the sales process (delay in payment from the buyer, unable to find a buyer for a certain material, etc), the association winds up having to shoulder the burden completely because it has already guaranteed money to the catador. Because the association tends to be short on operating capital (a subject I will turn to in point 3), it can have trouble in bearing these costs.

The new warehouse will probably employ a different remuneration scheme linked to the collective production of the group (some other enterprises use work hours with quotas or divide payment equally among associates, for example). This will be an important element of the new production process within the warehouse and will be a focus of my research.

3. The collective fund and operating capital

A chronic problem facing associations and cooperatives of catadores is the lack of operating capital. Catadores normally receive very low wages ($2-$10 a day, depending on the organization) and are always looking for ways to increase their earnings. This creates a conflict with the need for the cooperative to build up operating capital to finance investment and other business costs. Historically, every time ASMAC has been able to build up a collective fund (normally from clean materials like unused packaging donated by certain businesses), its associates have voted to split up the money as dividends. This desire is understandable for such a vulnerable group, but it limits the association’s ability to grow and develop.

An additional problem is that when this “clean material” arrives at the Kennedy warehouse to be sorted, individual associates try to take it for themselves and claim that they sorted it themselves, thereby receiving individual payment instead of sending the money to the collective fund. Oversight thus becomes a key issue. In the new warehouse, the president of the association will be in charge of designating what material arrives “clean” and sending it to the collective fund, but she will no doubt be under enormous pressure to say otherwise from certain associates within the space (who, as I have already mentioned, have a history of creating conflicts). Even with a collective remuneration scheme within the new warehouse, there will still be an economic benefit for the sorters there to designate clean material as dirty and thus split the profit amongst themselves, rather than send it to the collective fund to be split with the associates of the other two warehouses.

4. Work plan of the new warehouse

The new warehouse was built by the municipal government, which maintains ownership of the space but will “cede” it to ASMAC to run the sorting process. This is part of a process by which the mayor is implementing a recycling program in the new municipal waste management plan, required by Brazil’s latest Waste Management Law, passed in 2010. One condition of ASMAC’s use of the space is that it must outline a detailed “work plan” of how it will organize production within the warehouse. The government representatives expect a high level of detail, such as plans to establish a cleaning schedule for the bathrooms, kitchen and offices as well as fire safety procedures. They will work together with ASMAC representatives and their administrative technicians to develop this plan, and have asked us to participate. While I do believe it is important to have a plan in place before beginning operations (duh!), it is also important to emphasize that the new process will require a significant amount of experimentation, especially since it will involve integrating many novice catadores who do not have experience with sorting. Striking the balance between a detailed initial plan and experimental learning will be necessary. There are very high expectations from all the actors involved, and this is an incredible opportunity for us to help design a system that could serve as an example for using new sorting warehouses across Brazil.

 5. Demand for sorters and integration of novices

As I mentioned earlier, the quantity of catadores working at the Kennedy warehouse has diminished over time, as personnel conflicts and economic factors resulted in many associates leaving. At the same time, the quantity of material arriving at the warehouse has increased drastically as the municipal government implements its new “selective collection” program and encourages more businesses, schools and other partners to donate materials to ASMAC. With the quantity of workers going down and the quantity of material going up, the Kennedy warehouse is becoming crammed with material and there is a clear need for more sorters.

The new warehouse has a capacity for 110 people working in two shifts. Considering that the ASMAC group has shrunk to nine, the novices trained by INSEA, who come mainly from the neighborhood adjacent to the landfill where the new warehouse is situated, will form the majority of the group. Properly integrating the novices will be of paramount importance.

First will be a question of recruitment, making sure there are enough workers to fill the space and process all the materials. The original plan was to add novices in phases, so that the workforce would increase in proportion to the materials, thereby guaranteeing a livable wage for everyone. However, some of the INSEA-trained novices may have been disappointed that they were not selected in the first phase, and it will be important to keep them interested and motivated in joining at a later date.

Second will be a question of training, making sure that the novices learn how to process materials without getting overwhelmed or stressed from the get-go. The CATAFORTE course that INSEA used was designed to organize catadores from the streets and dumps, so its emphasis is on teaching cooperation and teamwork rather than the practical skills of how to properly collect and sort material. It therefore did not provide a complete training for people with no experience in the area. Getting current associates to help out the novices in a way that makes them feel welcome, encouraged, and relaxed will be very important. One suggestion is for sorters to initially work in teams (one veteran with one novice), but this may be difficult due to the imbalance in numbers as well as the indifference some current associates have shown to the process of training the rookies. One sorter, for example, told me that she had no interest in teaching the new associates, and that she was used to the “accelerated work rhythm of [her] team” and did not want to be slowed down by “soft people.”

The INSEA technician is concerned that some novices will be quickly turned off by the work once they see up close how physically demanding and dirty it can be, as well as the difficulties they will face in learning how to resolve personal conflicts without a clear hierarchical structure. I have a sneaking suspicion which I hope will be proved wrong that filling the new warehouse with a sufficiently large workforce may be trickier than everyone seems to expect.

Reverse Logistics of the Recycling Industry

When people think about recycling, they normally think in very general terms. Recycling refers to the process by which we take used materials and transform them into new products, thereby reducing waste. But in truth, recycling is a very complex process with several steps. In order to create a recycling system, we must set up procedures that work in the opposite direction of traditional production. Instead of taking a raw material and turning it into a final product, the goal is to take a final product and turn it into a raw material. Normally, the term “logistics” refers to the process of bringing the product to the consumer. The recycling industry, however, employs “reverse logistics.”

Recycling systems have several steps. First comes “source separation”, which refers to the initial disposal process. The goal here is to have consumers clean and separate their materials to facilitate distinct collection of recyclables vs. waste. This is the step that is most visible to the general public. Supplying adequate recycling containers and educating people to clean and sort materials are the most crucial elements in this phase of the process. When materials are not cleaned or sorted property, it creates greater inefficiency in the process and makes it harder to distinguish between waste collection and recycling collection, thus resulting in recyclable materials being sent to incinerators and landfills as well as dirty trash being sent to sorting facilities. Improving source separation strategies is a key element of reverse logistics.

The next step is collection and transport. Recycling systems require their own unique forms of transport and collection which we refer to as “selective collection”. Normal waste disposal employs compactor trucks that compress material in order to increase the quantity that can be transported at once. For recycling transport, this is not possible because compressing the material will mix it together and create greater difficulties in the sorting phase. This makes transport trickier and much more expensive, as a recycling truck can pick up only a small percentage of the materials that a compactor truck can. Also, transport must be designed in a way that maintains efficiency gains from source separation in the sorting process. For example, if residents separate aluminum, glass and plastic in separate containers, but then these materials are dumped together for transport only to be separated again during sorting, this creates inefficiencies in the system.

After transport comes sorting. This requires an appropriate facility (warehouse) as well as a team of workers. There are various forms of sorting, although the most common procedures I have seen in Brazil involve either sorting by hand out of bags on the ground, using a “silo” where material is dumped and falls down to a workbench by a standing worker, or a conveyor belt with a group of workers, each responsible for collecting a different material. A student of Dr. Lima and a good friend of mine, Cinthia Varella, designed a diagram for understanding various sorting processes within the scheme of reverse logistics (with my translation):

The sorting process is quite complex, and of course, many inefficiencies can arise within the warehouses, whether it is in the flow of materials within the space, personnel issues, equipment difficulties, etc. Normally, the sorting process tends to be the most labor-intensive phase of reverse logistics, and is the focus of most associations and cooperatives of catadores.

The final phase of reverse logistics is the transformation of the product from its raw form to a new, prime material. This is the most technologically complex step and one that requires more detailed industrial expertise. It is important to remember that even the best recycling systems with wonderful source separation, selective collection and sorting will be complete failures if there are not businesses out there interested in buying the materials and turning them into new products. There are many problems with this phase that continue to hinder the development of reverse logistics internationally. First, there are technological limits, and we need to study and design new industrial recycling processes that businesses can use en masse for materials that currently are unable to be transformed. (Electronics, for example, continue to present special difficulties due to their complex design.) Second, there are economic limits, as business owners find virgin material (paper, plastic, etc) to be higher quality and relatively cheap and abundant, and thus tend to prefer using these materials when possible. Third, there are social limits, as the general public does not place a very high premium on buying recycled goods and promoting recycling, and thus does not put any pressure on the private sector to change its practices or on the government to invest in new research and development.

Established the reverse logistics of recycling systems therefore requires attention to all four of these phases, and is not as simple as promoting “awareness” or installing recycling containers across town. Inefficiencies arise in every step of the process, and the investment required is significant, especially when compared against the costs of conventional collection using single bins, compactor trucks, and landfills/incinerators. Because of all these complications, recycling is enormously expensive and normally not cost-effective when you compare the costs of these four phases to the limited profit of selling materials to industry. That is why a private market for recycling does not spring up naturally, with businesses competing with each other to enter the market. In fact, the sector only exists at all for two main reasons. First, the economic desperation of waste-pickers has led them to rely on the activity for a basic mode of subsistence, using their manual labor as the chief input in the process. Second, environmentally-minded governments, normally with a push from their constituents, recognize that conserving natural resources is a public good with a positive externality, and thus begin to subsidize the activity. In poorer countries, recycling tends to persist due to the former motive; in richer countries, it is the latter that drives the market. One is considered “informal” and the other, “formal”, although I do not believe this rigid distinction is an appropriate way of separating the two approaches, especially considering that catador is a profession officially recognized by the Brazilian government.

The future of reverse logistics is one that is immensely important to understanding associations and cooperatives of catadores. One interesting debate in the waste management field regards the concept of “best practices.” To what extent will the technologies and systems designed OECD countries set the standard for use in the developing world? As my previous post about carts demonstrated, implementing technology is not always so straightforward. But as governments here in Brazil move to subsidize recycling systems more and more (especially through the new Solid Waste Law passed in 2010), it is possible that they will begin to mimic systems in the U.S. and Europe. While this may be good for promoting recycling in general, it represents a grave threat for the catadores. If new capital-intensive technologies such as robo-sorters replace labor-oriented approaches such as manual sorting warehouses, the catadores may find themselves pushed out of the market by new private companies subsidized by the government. Figuring out how to integrate the benefits of Western technologies into waste management systems in the developing world without harming the catadores will be a huge challenge.

While I am home in Maryland during December, I will be conducting research on the Mongtomery County recycling system, often considered to be a model across the country. I am particularly interested in observing technological differences between the U.S. and Brazil as well as best practices in reverse logistics. Afterward, I will write a blog update to explain the lessons I learned from the experience and their significance for the future of Brazil’s catadores.

Developing Appropriate Technology – The Cart Dilemma

Catadores across the world work in many forms, from picking in dumps to sorting through trash cans and collecting cans during block parties. But in urban Brazil, the most visible variety of catador is the street collector, who pulls large carts through the city, stockpiling material. Here is a typical example of such a cart:

These carts are ubiquitous in Brazil, mainly because they are the tool of choice for local depositories and scrap dealers, who lend them out to catadores to gather material for them. (If you look closely at the handlebar on the cart in the picture above, you will notice the "Depósito" mark and a phone number, identifying it as property of a local scrap dealer. This is common with most carts around Brazilian cities.)

The image of the individual pushing the cart is so synonymous with catadores that it is the symbol of the MNCR:

It’s easy to see the drawbacks to these carts. Dragging such massive loads around the cities, up and down giant hills while everybody stares at you can cause serious physical and social strain. While some catadores enjoy the independence of being able to sleep under their cart and some even take the opportunity to decorate them and show off their creativity, it is pretty easy to see the importance of developing better technology to make the work more comfortable and humane.

“Creating a better cart” has become something of a pastime here in Brazil. Lots of different organizations have taken a crack at trying to create a more appropriate technological alternative. There have been lightweight bamboo carts promoting environmental sustainability, electric carts proposed by the Itaipu dam authority and even homemade solutions such as emptying out an old refrigerator and putting it on wheels.Yet, so far, none of these ingenuitive proposals have seemed to stick. Why?

The problem has many layers, but a few principal factors stand out. One is ease of use. While they may be heavy and demeaning, the carts work. They can go up and down large hills carrying big loads, and they can fit in relatively tight areas as well. The two-wheeled structure allows for greater flexibility to maneuver, although that means relying on manual force to hold and pull the cart. Four-wheeled carts, or ones that use motors, often do not maneuver well and cannot supply the strength to go up steep hills.

Second is maintenance. Carts that use motors require much greater effort to repair, whether due to engine failure or mechanical flaws such as a broken axle. This not only makes the technology more expensive, it also requires greater skill to operate. ASMARE has a cart repair shop where wooden hand-pulled carts can be fixed, but doing the same for electric or gas carts would entail much higher operating costs due to stocking spare parts and training skilled repairmen. This is not just true for motorized parts: any cart that relies on a more rare material such as bamboo also necessitates a stock of that material for repairs, which can be hard to achieve.

The other driving factor outside of practical difficulties is economics. Even if a new cart design proves to be an effective alternative, upgrading the technology can still be a long process. If the new cart is more expensive (both in upfront costs and maintenance), then there needs to be a strong financial incentive to encourage organizations of catadores and, more importantly, local scrap dealers and depositories to make the switch. While it may be easier to convince the catadores themselves to change the technology if they see a benefit, the same cannot be said of the middlemen that rent the carts to them. These individuals are often not very concerned about the well-being of the catadores (hence the tendency of some to take advantage of them by offering low prices and trading goods for alcohol). The middlemen will get their materials regardless, so why should they invest their own money into upgrading their carts? The answer would probably have to be a mix of economic incentives and social and political pressure, shaming the scrap dealers into supporting the change. But regardless, a big push in this direction is yet to come, and the search for a better technology continues.

One new model developed by a local company, TECSCAN, is to use a gas-powered four-wheel cart. The model is currently being used by one cooperative in Belo Horizonte and INSEA is supporting a test period with a CATAUNIDOS-affiliated association in a town called Juatuba. The business will lend the cart to the association for use in collection in the center of town and INSEA and a local consulting company will evaluate the success of the technology. The cart was displayed several months ago during the State Recycling Conference:

While I am excited to see what will become of this new proposal, I would have preferred to see a more scientific study of the technology. Instead of simply handing it over to an association that has no history using carts (most of the members formerly collected at the dump) for use in an area that is significantly flatter than most parts of the Belo Horizonte metro area, it would have been better to control the variables. It should have been given to an association that already uses carts so that they could compare the effectiveness of the technology side by side and give more useful feedback. But regardless, I am sure the experience will give us some ideas moving forward of how to address cart development. If we can crack this puzzle, we can go a long way in improving the dignity and conditions of this work.

One additional note – as municipal governments implement recycling programs and associations and cooperatives of catadores expand their activities, it is easy to see a notable decline in cart use. Most of the CATAUNIDOS organizations do not employ hand-powered carts, and although some do use horses, most collection is done using trucks, which seem to be the principal form of transport for the future. However, carts do still have a key role to play in collection, both for individual street catadores who must transport their own materials, and for steep and windy areas of favelas or the urban periphery without traditional urban planning where vehicle access is limited and collection is more difficult. This post from an Indian-based initiative, Waste Ventures, does a nice job summing up some of the problems with implementing truck collection in urban centers of the developing world. Carts will be involved in recycling transportation schemes for a long time into the future, and developing the technology is thus a question that cannot be ignored.

Masters Research Proposal - "Bridging the Gap"

I wanted to write a quick update here since it has been a while since I have updated this blog. I actually do have a list of topics I plan to still cover and my research has certainly not been on pause lately. But I have been focusing for the last two weeks on my application to begin graduate school here at UFMG and build upon my Fulbright grant by turning it into a masters thesis. I am applying for the Masters in Education: Knowledge and Social Inclusion program, with my line of research under the field of "Politics, Work and Human Formation." While it may sound weird to some that I would be pursuing a masters in education degree, this program actual looks at education in the broader context of learning processes in general, and my focus would be on workplace knowledge acquisition between the catadores and their support partners. My goal for this two-year program is to gain in-depth academic knowledge of the practical issues involved with this field on the ground and to better understand the perspectives of the catadores and the NGO partners that work with them. Later, I plan to return to the U.S. to get a joint MBA-MPP (Business Administration and Public Policy) focused specifically on the question of integrating the informal sector into solid waste management in the developing world. Through the joint degree program, I would develop a better understanding of business practices and public policy specifically related to this topic, and then I would be able to continue my work in this field with three masters degrees representing the three pillars of this work - wastepickers and the third sector, government, and private businesses. Through these three programs, I also hope to learn generally about issues of grassroots community development, social entrepreneurship, and international economic policy.

I'm attaching a copy of the English version of my proposal, to better explain what it is I hope to do over the next two years here. And feedback and suggestions would be welcome. And starting next week I plan to resume regular blog posts again.

“Bridging the Gap – Evaluating Learning Processes among Wastepickers and Support Technicians”

            For my research project for the Masters in Education degree, I plan to continue my work with associations and cooperatives of wastepickers here in the Belo Horizonte metropolitan area. Since March of this year, I have accompanied the AlterNativas research nucleus of the production engineering department of UFMG and the leadership team of the Nenuca Institute for Sustainable Development (INSEA) in order to study management structures of organized wastepickers through a Fulbright research grant sponsored by the United States and Brazilian governments. I have learned a significant amount during my time in Brazil and, with my grant ending in December, I now hope to continue my research through the masters in education program at UFMG. I plan to focus my research on the principal problem I have observed during my grant period: the difficulty of building shared organizational knowledge between the wastepickers and the technicians who accompany them. I have divided this proposal into four sections: an overview of my experience in this field, current research findings, the theoretical framework surrounding my question, and my research plan.

History of Research Project

In 2008, I was accepted for a summer internship at the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) in Washington, DC. – a United States government agency that provides grants for grassroots development projects in Latin America. During my internship with the IAF, I reviewed grants given to eight community-based recycling initiatives in six Latin American countries. Using information from IAF field visits, surveys, focus groups, and interviews, I compiled a report describing the key lessons from these experiences in order to improve institutional knowledge of these types of projects. The report emphasized key factors in recyclers’ relationships with residents, governments, industry and internal members. I was fascinated by this general introduction to the topic, and resolved to travel to Brazil with a Fulbright grant to continue exploring organizations of wastepickers.

            The goal of my Fulbright grant was to learn in general about how organizations of wastepickers actually function in practice. From my research at the IAF, I knew that Brazil was an international leader in the field, and I wanted to learn what lessons could be applied elsewhere. In particular, I wanted to understand the internal management structures of these associations and cooperatives, especially relations between wastepickers and technicians, decision-making processes, training courses and capacity development, political and economic autonomy, and management of conflicts among associates.

            I have focused my Fulbright research in several areas. First and foremost, I have accompanied the INSEA staff in a project sponsored by Petrobras to expand and strengthen the CATAUNIDOS network of nine organizations of wastepickers in the Belo Horizonte metro area. I have also participated in UFMG research projects to study reverse logistics and economics of the recycling industry as well as ergonomic principles of sorting warehouses. I have studied the role of governments and civil society in this field through the Minas Waste Reference Center and the municipal and state Waste and Citizenship Forums. I have also contacted international organizations involved in this field to understand other experiences of integration of the informal sector into solid waste management in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and India. Finally, I have begun an in-depth case study of an association of catadores in Contagem together with two production engineering students at UFMG. Together, these activities have given me a broad knowledge base on this topic, and I plan to continue these projects into the future.

Current Research Findings

            So far, I have learned about a wide variety of topics in my research. I have looked at commercialization and industrialization of recyclables, the role of middlemen in the supply chain, infrastructure improvements, technological development, gender dynamics, expansion processes, artisanship, capacity building, training courses, public policies and government relations, and community support networks. Over the last decade, the basic model of organizing wastepickers in cooperatives and associations seems to have demonstrated significant potential: the growing number of similar groups in the Belo Horizonte area stands testament to this fact. With the new National Solid Waste Law passed in 2010, the opportunity for wastepickers to become involved in new local waste management schemes is higher than ever.

              The critical challenge for the National Movement of Catadores (MNCR) now becomes not simply to help the wastepickers organize and gain a political voice, but to take the next step and turn the wastepicker organizations into functioning social enterprises that work to implement recycling programs in municipalities across the country. This transition is crucial for the movement if it is to consolidate its success and continue to grow and evolve in order to resist economic threats such as new incineration technologies and competition from private sector businesses. As Dr. Francisco Lima wrote in 2003, a constant dynamic of evolution is necessary for wastepicker organizations to avoid potential stagnation or decrease of wages. (Lima, 2003, p. 117) To date, the principal focus of this new entrepreneurial approach has been to create commercialization networks among the cooperatives, such as the recently-constituted CATAUNIDOS, CATASAMPA, and CATABAHIA initiatives. However, the construction of these networks and the requisite standardization of certain business practices among their bases is a process that is only now beginning. It is a learning process for all the actors involved, both wastepickers and technicians. 

            I have been involved with the CATAUNIDOS-Petrobras project since it officially launched in April of this year and have observed some of the principal difficulties it faces. In its current form, CATAUNIDOS works more as a support network for technicians and MNCR leaders to accompany individual organizations rather than a business network that unites the activities of catadores across the region. The INSEA technicians, not the catadores, serve as the principal intermediaries between cooperatives, meaning that in practice most of the groups continue to work in isolation. The network’s plastic processing factory, the principal economic activity of CATAUNIDOS, was inaugurated in 2007 only to close again in 2009 after incurring large debts due to the difficulty in establishing joint commercialization structures and building a functioning business model. The cooperatives continue to lack the business structures needed to become sustainable, autonomous social enterprises. They do not have well-established production controls that allow them to measure quantities of commercialized material. Many remain extremely dependent on support from external actors such as local religious charities or government technicians, preferring to defer to them on administrative issues. Within the organizations, conflicts between members are constant sources of tension, making it difficult to make long-term strategic decisions through democratic assemblies. These factors continue to limit the development of the CATAUNIDOS network.

            A major obstacle for the CATAUNIDOS-Petrobras project is one all too common in the field of grassroots development: the visible gap between the learning processes of the technicians and the wastepickers. This new step of consolidating business practices within the cooperatives and creating commercialization networks is something that has never been done before and therefore requires a learning process for all involved. No technician or wastepicker knows exactly how to best implement a commercialization network; everybody involved in the movement is participating in this social construction and trying to put ideas into practice. But in general, the technicians and the wastepickers tend to take different approaches. Several training courses administered by INSEA to teach financial planning to the leaders CATAUNIDOS organizations did not produce any meaningful results, as the pedagogical approach of the technicians to teaching sound financial practices did not match up well with the wastepickers’ perception of the role accounting and mathematics should play in their enterprises. Technicians often talk about developing production controls to improve business administration, but wastepickers often see such activities as unproductive and burdensome in the context of their daily work of collecting, sorting, and processing materials. While technicians are focused on the long-term direction of the movement and strategic planning, wastepickers are more focused on their daily needs of improving income and work conditions.

In practice, the two groups of actors operate in very different spheres, with very different visions, creating an enormous difficulty for the future of CATAUNIDOS. Formulating this new enterprise is a social project that requires as much cooperation and unity of purpose as possible from the technicians and the wastepickers, and the future of the MNCR depends on the ability of these two communities to reconcile their approaches as much as possible in order to build shared organizational knowledge and direction.

Theoretical Framework

            In recent years, organizations of wastepickers have made significant advances in earning international recognition, resulting in an increasing amount of literature regarding their work on the local, national and international levels. As I develop my master’s thesis, I plan to integrate my work into this broader context, helping to situate the CATAUNIDOS-Petrobras project within an understanding of the broader challenges and opportunities facing wastepickers within solid waste management systems in the developing world. More importantly, I will relate my study to current academic theory regarding the theoretical problem addressed in my project: the gap between technicians and the communities they serve and how it affects the execution of a community development project.

            Here at UFMG, several masters’ theses have already detailed the experiences of enterprises that make up the CATAUNIDOS network. Cinthia Versiani Scott Varella, in the department of production engineering, performed a case study of COOPERT (Itauna) to demonstrate the techno-productive process within the cooperative and the key obstacles to improving efficiency, such as the quality of source-separated materials and sorting techniques (Varella, 2011). Fabiana Goulart de Oliveira, also in the department of production engineering, studied the development of social ties among associates of COOPERT, ASMARE (Belo Horizonte) and ASCAMP (Pará de Minas) in order to explain the relationship between efficiency and solidarity within wastepicker organizations (Oliveira, 2010). Sônia Maria Dias, in the department of geography, focused her research on the relationship between ASMARE and the municipal government in constructing a local recycling program (Dias, 2002). These, along with several other local productions (Andrade, 2004; Freitas, 2005) offer insights into the social structures of the CATAUNIDOS enterprises and the technical challenges they face.

On the international level, a growing number of organizations such as Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), and the Collaborative Working Group on Solid Waste Management in Low- and Middle-income Countries (CWG) have begun to build a knowledge base regarding economic and policy aspects of integrating wastepickers into solid waste management structures in the developing world. Access to this growing collection of experiences of wastepickers around the world (Samson, 2009; Gerdes & Gunsilius, 2010; Scheinberg, Simpson & Gupt, 2010) will allow me to situate the CATAUNIDOS project within the larger context of an international movement, drawing on a variety of experiences from different countries to get a better sense of the challenges and opportunities involved in this sector and how they relate to my research project.

Although the local and international literature in this field is abundant, I have not found any research that directly addresses the question how technicians actually attempt to implement their interventions within the social context of the wastepicker communities, and what sort of conflicts they encounter. By studying the construction of the CATAUNIDOS project by INSEA technicians and the wastepickers, my thesis will focus squarely on the intersection of the social and technical approaches.

            In referring to his work with local wastepickers, Dr. Lima has written about the importance of developing a science of solidarity production engineering, precisely because the field is “situated at the crossroads of the technical and the social.” (Lima, 2003, p.126). This echoes calls by Dr. Yves Schwartz to recognize how technical knowledge is adapted to the dynamic learning environment of the workplace, where workers must constantly apply “local reinventions” in order to situate this knowledge within the historical context of their experience and organization (Schwartz, 2003, p.26). Schwartz’s concept of reinvention through application relates to Dr. Jean Lave’s theories regarding “situated learning,” which explains that workplace knowledge is a result of participation within an authentic activity and social collaboration among “communities of practice”: groups of individuals working together within the same context and expressing a certain confluence of beliefs and behaviors (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Because technicians and workers do not perform the same authentic activity (producing procedures for technical-scientific efficiency vs. producing the product itself) and because they often operate within separate “communities of practice”, working amongst like individuals on their given task, it is not surprising then that the two groups of actors would come to develop separate learning processes, and that workers would feel the need to “reinvent” practices developed by a group of technicians.

            This gap between technicians and workers that develops naturally as a result of separate contexts of situated learning is further intensified when a group of well-educated individuals attempts to intervene in a marginalized community. In this scenario, the gap is accentuated by the cognitive differences between the two groups. In his recent work, A Ralé Brasileira, sociologist Jessé Souza articulates how social exclusion within the school environment restricts lower-class Brazilians almost exclusively to manual labor and undermines their long-term cognitive ability (Souza & Grillo, 2009). Considering that many of the technicians who work with wastepickers often hold bachelors’ degrees or even master’s degrees, there is a wide gap in formal education that affects the ability of the two sides to mentally process and comprehend what the other attempts to communicate. This can be an especially significant problem when technicians try to impart skills that require certain intellectual ability, such as financial management, which necessitates a basic understanding of mathematics and accounting procedures. Similarly, technicians’ lack of experience with difficult manual labor undermines their ability to understand the needs and concerns of the wastepickers. 

            Another theoretical question to be explored is that of the educator-student relationship. As outlined above, the two processes of workplace learning (technical-scientific principles and the practical “reinvention” of those ideas) often interact with each other in a reciprocal way; the technician and the worker learn from each other. This is certainly the case with the INSEA/CATAUNIDOS project, as technicians try to impart management techniques and business practices while the wastepickers explain the daily demands and practical issues of their enterprise. This is closely related to Alvaro Vieira Pinto’s theory of “reciprocity of the educational relationship: student as educator” (Pinto, 2003, p.113). The relationship between technician and wastepicker and the reconciliation of the two approaches are most important during moments of teaching—when one side attempts to communicate information to the other in order to change current practice. During my research, I plan to focus closely on the question of the educator-educated relationship to better understand how learning and teaching processes can lead to closer cooperation, particularly in the area of adult workplace education.

            In addition to exploring the themes of workplace knowledge and education, I also plan to integrate political economy into my master’s project. The work of Elinor Ostrom, the 2009 Nobel Prize recipient in economics, will be of particular relevance. Dr. Ostrom has developed a framework for evaluating institutions of collective action that do not fit traditional models of private businesses or government entities. She identifies three levels of analysis of these institutions, each “deeper” than the last: operational (day-to-day decisions), collective-choice (management and policy-making prodedures), and constitutional (formulating governance structures, determining eligibility of participation). She then explains the factors that affect rule-making at these three levels, such as monitoring and enforcement mechanisms as well as collective-choice arenas, both formal, such as legislatures and courts, and informal, such as casual gatherings and work environments (Ostrom, 1990, p.52-53). Dr. Ostrom’s work has special relevance for organizations such as associations and cooperatives, which operate with very different decision-making procedures and rule structures than normal economic and political entities. I will use this framework to evaluate the role both technicians and wastepickers play in establishing and modifying the institutional apparatus of their organizations, focusing especially on how rules are applied and enforced. The mechanisms by which the technicians and wastepickers exert their influence to craft institutions better suited to their needs and desires will be crucial in understanding how contrasting approaches are reconciled in practice. 

             While this basic overview of theories related to my research topic will provide a good starting point for my project, it is by no means exhaustive of sufficiently profound.   I will continue to explore studies of the local and international context of wastepickers, scientific vs. historical work knowledge, situated learning, cognitive abilities, educator-student relationships and political economy of collective institutions, as well as various new theories and viewpoints I am sure to encounter along the way, in order to further elaborate the theoretical implications of my research.

           

Research Plan

            Because my Masters project will essentially be a continuation and deepening of my current Fulbright research, I will be able to build on the groundwork I have already established in this field. My experience in Brazil this year has allowed me to understand the basic context of the wastepicker movement, which means that I will be able to focus my topic from the outset of the Masters program. I will complete my field research in November and return to the United States in December, whereupon I will compile my Fulbright final report. Should I be accepted to the UFMG masters in education program, I will be able to use this final report as a starting point for my research.

            My research will focus on possibilities for addressing the difficulties encountered in reconciling the separate visions of technicians and wastepickers. While I believe that a certain degree of division will always exist, I would like to study how the various actors involved in the CATAUNIDOS project attempt to limit this problem in order to advance the new entrepreneurial goals of the MNCR. Accompanying and analyzing this process will provide important insight into a problem that economic development specialists across the world commonly face: overcoming social, organizational and cultural differences in order to promote participative, inclusive and dynamic programs together with the members of the communities in which they work. From rural extension programs to public health initiatives and education reforms, external actors trying to promote positive changes within communities constantly struggle to implement their projects in a way that promotes ownership and participation by the people whose lives they aim to improve. Although my research will focus specifically on the future of wastepicker organizations, it will have broad implications for our understanding of development processes in general.

            I will execute my research by continuing to participate as much as possible in the activities of INSEA, accompanying its technicians on weekly site visits, participating in regular strategic planning meetings and assemblies, studying the implementation of a new business plan for the network (currently being constructed through the support of SEBRAE), and having regular discussions with all representatives of the NGO who are involved in the project. I will research the perspective of the wastepickers through interviews, focus groups, direct observation, and informal conversations that I will conduct independent from my participation with INSEA. I also plan to study the Redesol cooperatives, a separate network of wastepicker organizations that are more closely associated with the municipality of Belo Horizonte and its supporting institutions. The comparison of CATAUNIDOS with Redesol should give me greater perspective on varying approaches used by technicians and wastepickers in constructing these networks.

            I will refine my methodological approach through consultation with my advisor, but I do have a strong starting point for conducting my research. Through my academic career in undergraduate education, I have a good working knowledge of public policy, economics, sociology and history, which will allow me to understand the broader issues of wastepicker organizations within the macroeconomy. With my experience conducting field research in Bolivia and Nicaragua as well as here in Brazil, I am already comfortable with performing interviews, focus groups, literature review and quantitative economic analysis in foreign countries, so cultural and linguistic issues should not present a significant difficulty for me. During my studies in Bolivia, I took a course on field study methodology and learned to implement various projects such as life histories and documentary filmmaking through an anthropological perspective. Also, I am currently participating in Dr. Lima’s class on Qualitative Methodology of Ergonomic Analysis in the department of production engineering. I am in the process of applying this methodology through field research with the wastepickers of ASMAC (Contagem), so I am continuing to develop my understanding of concepts such as intentionality, verbalizations, modus operandi, consciousness, and competence and relating them to the work environment of the wastepickers. While these experiences provide me with a strong background for my research, I hope to continue to build my methodological and theoretical knowledge through my classes at the Faculty of Education. 

            Completing the masters program at the Faculty of Education will be an important step forward in my career goals. I plan to work long-term in this field, focusing on the integration of the informal sector in solid waste management in the developing world. It is an area that I am extremely passionate about, and one in which I believe I will have much to contribute. More broadly, the lessons I will learn from this case study will deepen my understanding of grassroots development in general, which will allow me to continue the academic path I began during my undergraduate education. In addition, over the last several years I have developed a special relationship with Latin America and I want to continue to explore and study this region. Over the course of the masters program, I hope to deepen my understanding of Latin America, and Brazil especially, so that I can become actively involved in this region over the remainder of my career.

Bibliography

DIAS, S. M. Construindo a Cidadania: Avanços e Limites do Projeto de Coleta Seletiva em Parceria com a ASMARE. Dissertação (Mestrado em Geografia) – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2002.

LAVE, Jean; WENGER, Etienne. Situated Learning; Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1991.

LIMA, Francisco P. A. A Engenharia da Produção Solidária. In: UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS. Faculdade de Educação. Núcleo de Estudos sobre Trabalho e Educação. Revista Trabalho e Educação, Belo Horizonte, v.12, n.1, jan-jun 2003, p. 115-126.

OLIVEIRA, F. G. O. Processo de Trabalho e Produção de Vínculos Sociais: Eficiência e Solidariedade na Triagem de Materiais Recicláveis. Dissertação (Mestrado em Engenharia de Produção) - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2010.

OSTROM, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evaluation of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, 1990.

PINTO, Alvaro Vieira. Sete Lições sobre Educação de Adultos. São Paulo: Cortez/Autores Associados, 2003.

SAMSON, Melanie (Ed.) Refusing to be Cast Aside: Waste Pickers Organizing Around the World. Cambridge: WIEGO, 2009.

SCHWARTZ, Yves. Trabalho e Saber. Tradução por Daisy Moreira Cunha, Francisco Lima e Eloisa Helena Santos. In: UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS. Faculdade de Educação. Núcleo de Estudos sobre Trabalho e Educação. Revista Trabalho e Educação, Belo Horizonte, v.12, n.1, jan-jun 2003, p. 21-34.

SOUZA, Jessé; GRILLO, André. A Ralé Brasileira: que é e como vive. Belo Horizonte: Editora Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 2009.

VARELLA, C. V. S. Revirando o Lixo: Possibilidade e Limites da Reciclagem como Alternativa de Tratamento dos Resíduos Sólidos. Dissertação (Mestrado em Engenharia de Produção) – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2011.

A Final Note on Extractive Capitalism: Can Technology Save us?

After looking over my last blog post, I thought it necessary to discuss an additional element regarding natural resource extraction: the future of sustainable technology.

In his 2008 book Common Wealth, economist Jeffrey Sachs argues that environmental pressures on the planet from human activity boil down to the following equation:

I = P * A * T

I is Environmental Impact, P is Population, A is Average Wealth, and T is Negative Effect of Current Technology.

This equation represents the three principal factors that negatively affect the environment: population growth, economic growth, and growth of dirty technologies (polluting factories or cars, for example). Sachs argues that, in a world where poorer countries are rapidly accumulating wealth (a fact that should be celebrated), we must control population growth and learn to adopt environmentally sustainable technologies in order to limit our environmental impact. With rapid demographic change expected to stabilize the world population within one hundred years, a technological revolution, Sachs claims, is the key to saving our planet.

I strongly agree with Sachs that technology is vital for our future survival. Here in Brazil, old trucks roam the highways belching out long tailwinds of dirty exhaust, creating a haze of smog around cities. The scene is reminiscent of Los Angeles of old, until regulations introducing air pollution controls began to make cars, trucks and factories significantly cleaner. In dealing with water and air pollution, environmentally-friendly technology has already demonstrated its use. And with energy supplies dwindling and the threat of global warming looming on the horizon, mankind is beginning to put more and more effort into developing carbon sequestration techniques, solar power, electric cars, and all sorts of other technologies that we will need to save us from impending catastrophe. Sustainable technologies are pivotal for us to continue growing and developing as a society while limiting our future impact on the planet.

However, I believe it is misguided for us to look to technology as our savior. Simply put, even the most sustainable technologies depend on continued exploitation of natural resources that lead to the dangerous extractive capitalist approach I discussed in my last post. Take energy storage, for example. Humanity has a lot riding on the potential of renewable energy: using natural, unlimited supplies of wind, sunlight, and underground heat to store energy into electric form and then transmitting it to battery-powered appliances like computers, telephones, and in the future, cars. But what are these batteries made of? Lithium, an underground mineral currently known to exist in several large deposits across the world, primarily in Bolivia and Afghanistan. Our idea, then, to save us from dwindling energy supplies is to begin to extract this new mineral in ever-increasing quantities. This brings us back to the original danger of extractive capitalism, plundering our natural resources in ever-increasing quantities until we completely despoil our natural environment and use up the resource. And that’s without even mentioning the steel, iron, aluminum, rubber, and other materials necessary to produce many of these energy-transmitting products. Even though solar energy may be infinitely more appealing than dirty coal, it is still not a technology that we can truly call 100% sustainable.

Adopting sustainable technologies will not save us from our dependence on extraction. The problem is much larger than the one Sachs describes, and one that we ignore at our own peril.