IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v138y2021ics0305750x20303223.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Grassroots waste picker organizations addressing the UN sustainable development goals

Author

Listed:
  • Gutberlet, Jutta

Abstract

Worldwide waste pickers work under deplorable conditions and are not recognized for their environmental and community services, by recovering and diverting recyclable materials from waste. Brazil has accumulated experiences of international relevance, particularly between 2004 and 2015, due to institutional and policy support for the Social and Solidarity Economy and the creation of a National Waste Pickers’ movement. These conditions have favored the formation of new recycling cooperatives throughout the country. While there is still a wide spectrum of differences among these membership-based organizations, they also have many characteristics in common and share similar values and objectives. This research aims to demonstrate that when organized and supported by public policies and inclusive governance these groups are able to tackle several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article presents results of a case study, conducted over the period of 5 months in 2018, involving 21 waste picker cooperatives in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil. Data collection included the application of a questionnaire to the leaders of the 21 cooperatives and site visits to their facilities, including informal conversations with members. Data was collected at the cooperatives and involved note taking and voice recording. The data was transcribed and tabled for the subsequent content analysis. The results demonstrate the impacts of the work of organized waste pickers on SDGs (goals # 1, 5, 8, 11 and 12). The study shows how these groups address social, economic and environmental targets, how they build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities. Many cooperatives still operate under precarious conditions, suffering from weak government commitments and neglect or from the volatility of the economy. Public policies and participation in governance are instrumental in acknowledging waste picker organizations and remunerating their services to thus unlock their full potential to further the progress on the implementation of SDGs. Political will is paramount for waste pickers to become the champions in the transition to more sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Gutberlet, Jutta, 2021. "Grassroots waste picker organizations addressing the UN sustainable development goals," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:138:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x20303223
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105195
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X20303223
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105195?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joyeeta Gupta & Courtney Vegelin, 2016. "Sustainable development goals and inclusive development," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 433-448, June.
    2. Moser, Caroline O. N., 1978. "Informal sector or petty commodity production: Dualism or dependence in urban development?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(9-10), pages 1041-1064.
    3. Jutta Gutberlet & Torleif Bramryd & Michael Johansson, 2020. "Expansion of the Waste-Based Commodity Frontier: Insights from Sweden and Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-15, March.
    4. Anuradha Joshi & Mick Moore, 2004. "Institutionalised Co-production: Unorthodox Public Service Delivery in Challenging Environments," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 31-49.
    5. Wael Fahmi & Keith Sutton, 2010. "Cairo’s Contested Garbage: Sustainable Solid Waste Management and the Zabaleen’s Right to the City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(6), pages 1-19, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diego Coletto & Davide Carbonai, 2023. "What Does It Mean to Have a Dirty and Informal Job? The Case of Waste Pickers in the Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Aryampa, Shamim & Maheshwari, Basant & Sabiiti, Elly N. & Bateganya, Najib L. & Olobo, Christopher, 2022. "Understanding the impacts of waste disposal site closure on the livelihood of local communities in africa: A case study of the kiteezi landfill in Kampala, Uganda," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    3. Antonella Maiello, 2022. "In, Out or Beyond? Waste Pickers and Policy Networks: A Story from Jardim Gramacho (Rio de Janeiro)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-25, December.
    4. Denise Díaz de León & Omar Díaz Fragoso & Igor Rivera & Gibrán Rivera, 2021. "Cooperatives of Mexico: Their Social Benefits and Their Contribution to Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-19, April.
    5. R. Souza Piao & T. B. Vincenzi & D. A. Vazquez‐Brust & N. Yakovleva & S. Bonsu & M. M. Carvalho, 2024. "Barriers toward circular economy transition: Exploring different stakeholders' perspectives," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 153-168, January.
    6. Laura Neville & Luisa Fernanda Tovar Cortés, 2023. "Waste Pickers’ Formalisation from Bogotá to Cartagena de Indias: Dispossession and Socio-Economic Enclosures in Two Colombian Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-17, June.
    7. Julia Luz Camargos Mesquita & Jutta Gutberlet & Katiuscia Pereira de Araujo & Vanessa Resende Nogueira Cruvinel & Fabiano Harada Duarte, 2023. "Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Based on Social Recycling: A Case Study with Waste Picker Cooperatives in Brasília, Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-17, June.
    8. Isabella Tamine Parra Miranda & Reginaldo Fidelis & Dayanne Aline de Souza Fidelis & Luiz Alberto Pilatti & Claudia Tania Picinin, 2020. "The Integration of Recycling Cooperatives in the Formal Management of Municipal Solid Waste as a Strategy for the Circular Economy—The Case of Londrina, Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-22, December.
    9. María Garrido-Ruso & Beatriz Aibar-Guzmán & Albertina Paula Monteiro, 2022. "Businesses’ Role in the Fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-35, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Navarrete-Hernández, Pablo & Navarrete-Hernandez, Nicolas, 2018. "Unleashing waste-pickers potential: supporting recycling cooperatives in Santiago de Chile," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 85730, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Peng Zeng & Sihui Wu & Zongyao Sun & Yujia Zhu & Yuqi Chen & Zhi Qiao & Liangwa Cai, 2021. "Does Rural Production–Living–Ecological Spaces Have a Preference for Regional Endowments? A Case of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-21, November.
    3. Joyeeta Gupta & Louis Lebel, 0. "Access and allocation in earth system governance: lessons learnt in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-18.
    4. Agni Kalfagianni & Oran R. Young, 2022. "The politics of multilateral environmental agreements lessons from 20 years of INEA," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 245-262, June.
    5. Freddie Sayi Siangulube & Mirjam A. F. Ros-Tonen & James Reed & Eric Rega Christophe Bayala & Terry Sunderland, 2023. "Spatial Tools for Inclusive Landscape Governance: Negotiating Land Use, Land-Cover Change, and Future Landscape Scenarios in Two Multistakeholder Platforms in Zambia," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-23, April.
    6. Yuan, Mei-Hua & Lo, Shang-Lien, 2020. "Developing indicators for the monitoring of the sustainability of food, energy, and water," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    7. Suwan Lu & Guobin Fang & Mingtao Zhao, 2023. "Towards Inclusive Growth: Perspective of Regional Spatial Correlation Network in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-19, March.
    8. Luisa Moretto, 2007. "Urban governance and multilateral aid organizations: The case of informal water supply systems," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(4), pages 345-370, December.
    9. Felipe Arenas-Torres & Miguel Bustamante-Ubilla & Roberto Campos-Troncoso, 2021. "The Incidence of Social Responsibility in the Adoption of Business Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-14, March.
    10. Bablu Kumar Dhar & Sabrina Maria Sarkar & Foster K. Ayittey, 2022. "Impact of social responsibility disclosure between implementation of green accounting and sustainable development: A study on heavily polluting companies in Bangladesh," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(1), pages 71-78, January.
    11. Amin, A. T. M. Nurul & Singh, Andréa Menefee,, 2002. "The informal sector in Asia from the decent work perspective," ILO Working Papers 993551963402676, International Labour Organization.
    12. Jean-François Ruault & Alice Dupré La Tour & André Evette & Sandrine Allain & Jean-Marc Callois, 2022. "A biodiversity-employment framework to protect biodiversity," Post-Print hal-03365820, HAL.
    13. Jan Anton van Zanten & Rob van Tulder, 2020. "Beyond COVID-19: Applying “SDG logics” for resilient transformations," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(4), pages 451-464, December.
    14. Tong Wu & Lucang Wang & Haiyang Liu, 2021. "Spatiotemporal Differentiation of Land Surface Thermal Landscape in Yangtze River Delta Region, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-20, August.
    15. Reyes-Menendez, Ana & Clemente-Mediavilla, Jorge & Villagra, Nuria, 2023. "Understanding STI and SDG with artificial intelligence: A review and research agenda for entrepreneurial action," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    16. Amengual, Matthew, 2010. "Complementary Labor Regulation: The Uncoordinated Combination of State and Private Regulators in the Dominican Republic," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 405-414, March.
    17. Pius B. Simon, 1998. "Informal Responses to Crises of Urban Employment: An Investigation into the Structure and Relevance of Small-scale Informal Retailing in Kaduna, Nigeria," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(6), pages 547-557, August.
    18. Carmela Gargiulo & Antonio Sforza & Claudio Sterle & Floriana Zucaro, 2018. "An Optimization Model Fitting the Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-16, September.
    19. Swaminathan, M., 1991. "Understanding the "Informal Sector": A Survey," Research Paper 95, World Institute for Development Economics Research.
    20. Mohamed Amara, 2016. "The linkages between formal and informal employment growth in Tunisia: a spatial simultaneous equations approach," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 56(1), pages 203-227, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:138:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x20303223. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.