Sobre Viver No/Do Lixo: o trabalho do catador de materiais recicláveis no Aterro Controlado do Município de Amargosa - Ba

Abstract

The management of Municipal Solid Waste – MSW constitutes one of the greatest challenges of contemporaneity. The production of these waste grows exponentially, alongside consumption, and spaces for final disposal of these wastes become increasingly scarce. Brazil presents worrisome data in this area, like the 58.06% of Brazilian municipalities that still dump their waste in the open, in illegal dumps or landfills. Social actors of great socio-environmental relevance appear in these scenarios, the waste pickers of recyclable materials, which blend with the rests, panning materials that can be reused or recycled. From the perspective of characterizing and understanding the work of the collector of recyclable materials from the landfill in the municipality of Amargosa – BA, in order to produce knowledge to support the implementation of an integrated and inclusive management of MSW, this research was conducted under qualitative and quantitative approach, using as instruments for data collection questionnaire and semi-structured interview, which revealed the presence of collectors aged between 18 and 70 years, mostly from the rural area that have become collectors as an alternative to the difficulties imposed by drought and unemployment. These workers face unsanitary conditions, submitted to a high degree of social vulnerability, obtaining an income lower than the minimum wage, with no access to social benefits assured to other employees. Most of these collectors ignore the entire production cycle of recycling and the importance of their role in this context. The research also revealed a process of territorialization of MSW disposal area, through demarcation and appropriation of space from power relations, which was evidenced by the conflicts between the collectors and the work rules established by them. Thus, based on the raised indicators, the extremely perverse conditions of exploitation which the collectors are submitted were discussed. These individuals are situated in the most degrading part of the process, realizing the worst part of the job and getting ridiculously low values, in addition to being submitted to all levels of exploitation, which begins with the purchase of recyclable material by middlemen and extends throughout the whole productive chain. In this context, we suggest the construction and execution of a Management Plan for MSW, with an intense involvement and responsibility of society to be able to deconstruct social representations about scavengers, creating alternatives for effective integration of these individuals, from them and for them, considering them as essential environmental agents to achieve any process of MSW management.