Forage Tracking: Tools for Participatory Recycling Management

In São Paulo, 90% of all recycled materials are collected by informal recyclers, the “catadores” (M. Medina 2009).

Catadores work individually or in worker-owned cooperatives.

project team: Libby McDonald, Dietmar Offenhuber, Ciro Iorio, Christie Lin; Partners in São Paulo: Ceilia Dos Santos / USP, Rede Catasampa/MNCR, Flavia Scabin, Oscar Fergutz / AVINA

The New National Solid Waste Law

The national network of cooperatives, Movimento Nacional de Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis (MNCR), helped shaping a new solid waste law: LEI No 12.305, 2nd August 2010, “Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos“– Official recognition of the catadores– Cities and private companies must use cooperatives for

recycling services

„This law sanctions the social inclusion of workers, who for many years were forgotten and mistreated by the public power.“ Severino Lima Jr. (MNCR)

but: the law also creates new challenges by forcing cooperatives to professionalize and compete with other private companies.

Understanding Foraging

• The cooperatives operate on Tacit Knowledge (Michael Polanyi) - implicit knowledge that is not documented and difficult to verbalize & articulate.

• Therefore, most cooperatives are not ready to take full advantage of the new law's opportunities.

• A formalization strategy, better spatial coordination and a business model would allow the catadores to scale up their services and improve their own livelihood.

• Connecting cooperatives with private businesses /residents would be beneficial, but a relationship of trust needs to be established.

Turning Tacit Knowledge into Explicit, Actionable Knowledge

• using GPS tracking– for investigating foraging strategies in the urban

environment, using the trace as a stimulus for qualitative interviews

– for building a spatial knowledge base of annotated traces for planning routes and operations

– as method for gathering data during the collection process in daily operations; a low-barrier alternative to manual data entry

• developing a business model– improve coordination between cooperatives for optimizing

processes, aggregating materials, and creating higher-value products

A Platform for Participatory Recycling Management

• Companies can schedule pickups for discarded materials; a service they would have to pay for otherwise

• Residents would have a direct contact for arranging the disposal of their recyclables and learn how to dispose properly

• Cooperatives would get information about where to get what material; making collection easier

Cooperatives could build a trusted relationship with Companies / Households

Our platform is designed for low-tech environments and builds upon the technology available in the cooperatives, i.e. simple, pre-paid cell phones

The Bigger Picture• Cities all over the world become harder to manage; both

urbanization and de-urbanization strain the provision of municipal services.

• Through formalization, informal recyclers can achieve respectable income, social status and improve their working and living conditions (M. Medina)

• Our project is a step towards bottom-up, technology mediated, socially responsible urban infrastructures; facilitating the participation of citizens and inclusion of marginalized groups.

exploratory field trip Jan. 2011