Empreendimentos econômicos solidários de catadores: cadeias produtivas de resíduos, processos tecnológicos e parcerias

Abstract

The solidarity economic enterprises of waste pickers are being created in several Brazilian municipalities as an alternative to humanization and formalization of the picker works at the waste collection systems, in which perform activities of collecting, sorting, processing and commercialization of solid waste. This study aims to identify the stage of development of solidarity economic enterprises of waste pickers in the productive chain of recycling and assess the extent of how support and encourage entities interfere with their progress. For this, we performed a multiple case study with five solidarity economic enterprises of waste pickers and a general characterization of the developments of waste pickers of the State of São Paulo from the survey of the database of the National Information System on Economy Solidarity. The enterprises studied had differential access to infrastructure and technology due to partnerships, especially with municipal governments. It was noted that for the enterprises moving forward on the productive chain does not necessarily have to own the technology to beneficiate the waste beyond the waste sorting and pressing of solid waste. The access to knowledge of the waste market, the ability to negotiate the cooperative's products, the expertise in sorting waste, the direct selling industry without the figure of the middleman, the amount of waste traded and access to technologies for collecting, sorting, pressing and marketing are factors that determine the progress of the solidarity economic enterprises in the production chain of recycling waste. We also observed that waste pickers relate themselves differently with the technology, seeking to adapt it to their own realities and everyday needs.