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What about brazilian plastic and

who work with it.

Intro.

Intro.

Over 79 million tons of solid waste. This was the amount of waste produced in Brazil in 2018, of which over 70% goes to landfills.

survey data conducted by the Brazilian Association of Public Cleaning and Special Waste (Abrelpe)

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On average, each Brazilian produces 387 kilograms of waste per year.
(Abrelpe, 2018) 

 

Only 18% of Brazilian municipalities offer separate collection of waste to its inhabitants.
(data Abrelpe, 2018) 

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Even after their ban in 2014, in Brazil in 1600 cities there are nearly 3,000 “lixões”, the final waste disposal open area, without any planning or measures to protect the environment and public health. 

(data Abrelpe, 2018)

Waste management.

Waste management.

Catadores.

Commonly known as "catadores", these workers live from the collection and separation of recyclable materials playing a key role when it comes to the environment. Their work generates a new production logic in which sustainable development and economic growth can coexist, thus demonstrating that what is apparently garbage for some, for others, those who are outside the parameters of consumption of modernity, it is a waste, indeed, a luxury. 

catadores.
Project aim.

Project Aim.

The main aim of the project is to add value to the laborious work of catadores and their cooperatives, giving them and also to the material they saved, a new life.

Their manual skills and their energy combined with the desire to make a difference can finally be transformed into a product that actually transmits their values.

With the lack of capital, tools, training and social and economic organization, “catadores” are subjected to a perverse logic of exploitation by the intermediary industries of recyclable materials.

 

This segment of intermediaries favors a situation of constant dependence and appropriates a fundamental surplus of the work done by the catadores, buying the materials collected at ridiculous prices.

 

Despite their obvious importance in the Brazilian waste management system, the category of "catadores" does not receive due attention from public authorities and society. On the contrary, they are often confused with beggars, despised and repressed by the rest of the population. 

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