Informal Sector Of Waste Management: The Invisible Niche Of A Circular Economy

PI PUIG, ANA PILAR

Congreso; International Sustainability Transitions (IST) Conference 2016; 2016

Instituto Wuppertal

In 2004 Argentina?s management of the final disposal of solid waste was facing serious difficulties: most of the solid waste was disposed in open dumps without sanitary controls. In order to address this challenge, the government of Argentina launched in 2005the National Strategy on Integrated Management of Urban Solid Waste. It consisted mainly in promoting the shutting of landfills and giving impulse to reducing, reusing and recycling waste. However 10 years afterwards no straight policies can be found nor results can be seen. By law waste management corresponds to the municipal level and therefore has been operationalized by the municipalities differently. Except from some periods in Buenos Aires city, a common feature has been not taking into consideration the already existing ?parallel? informal sector of waste pickers, who are earning their living by collecting and selling recyclable material and also in this way reintroducing the materials into the economic circuit. Andersen (2007) states that the environment can be acknowledged as fulfilling four basic welfare economic functions: amenity values; resource base for the economy; sink for residual flows; and life support system. Rising waste generation due to growing population and consumption patterns is inevitably increasing the pressures on the environment. Alternatively, waste converted back to resources makes the economy become circular. The research problem of this paper therefore can be framed within the idea of a circular economy as a sustainability challenge. Analysing the development of waste management systems in a specific national context requires an understanding of the different actors and interactions between them, as well as the economic and political background. For this reason, the proposal of a multi-level analysis from the transition research framework (Geels, 2011; Loorbach, 2007) can be a useful approach for analysing past stages and present state of waste management in a national context. Loorbach (2007), for example, has applied the transition framework to the Dutch case and recognizes a shift from waste disposal to waste management ?being incineration and recycling the core axes in the latter-. It is stated the transition process was co-constructed by people awareness on environmental risks and policy decisions answering that.In Argentina many researches have addressed the history of waste management (Dimarco, 2012; Gorban, 2014; Paiva, 2006; Perelman, 2011; Suarez y Schamber, 2007) although not using explicitly the transition framework. Nevertheless, the stages mentioned are very similar to the ones in the Netherlands. Two main differences can be observed. First, in Argentina this transition has not taken place: incineration has not been used and recycling policies have not been seriously promoted. Second, a key difference that results from the distinct national contexts is the existence of an informal sector that the authors recognize for all the stages in the Argentine case: a group of marginal people living on the things (food, clothes, etc.) they collect from waste and from the incomes they receive by selling recyclable materials. These everyday practices of reusing and recycling carried out by the waste pickers can be linked to the core target of the circular economy. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to analyse the present state of waste management in Argentina considering the specific socio-economical context and link it to the idea of a circular economy. Can the informal sector be considered as a niche able to push a sustainable transition? In which ways the informal sector contribute or hinder a circular economy? Based on bibliography review, participant observation in a peripheral urban neighbourhood and a set of interviews with different stakeholders from the waste management sector, including waste pickers living in that neighbourhood, the research tries to address those questions.By introducing the multi-level analysis (Geels, 2011) a hypothesis can be drawn: the informal sector of waste pickers might be considered a niche in which socio-technical processes are taking place but in a complete marginal place and therefore a circular economy develops without this being fully acknowledged.ReferencesAndersen, M. S. (2007). An introductory note on the environmental economics of the circular economy. Sustainability Science, 2(1), 133-140.Dimarco, S. (2012). «De lo patógeno a lo ambiental: disputas de sentido en torno a la clasificación de residuos». Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 74(2), abril-junio, p. 185. Geels, F. W. (2011). The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions: Responses to seven criticisms. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 1(1), 24-40.Gorbán, D. (2014). Las tramas del cartón. Trabajo y familia en los sectores populares del Gran Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: Gorla. Loorbach, D. A. (2007). Transition management: new mode of governance for sustainable development. Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT).Paiva, V. (2006) «El ?cirujeo?, un camino informal de recuperación de residuos. Buenos Aires, 2002-2003». Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos, 21 (1), enero-abril, p. 189. Perelman, M. (2011). «La construcción de la idea de trabajo digno en los cirujas de la ciudad de Buenos Aires». Intersecciones en Antropología, 12(1), p. 69. Suárez, F. y Schamber, P. (2007). «Recuperadores urbanos de residuos (cartoneros), inclusión social y sustentabilidad». XXVI Congreso de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología, Guadalajara, Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología.