Environmental Protection, Work, and Social Inclusion. Formalizing the Recycling of Urban Solid Waste in Buenos Aires

MALDOVAN BONELLI, JOHANNA

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

SAGE PUB

Año: 2017 vol. 45 p. 91 - 107

0094-582X

The changes in the paradigms regarding urban solid waste management that haveoccurred in the past few decades have led to a reformulation of Argentine social, labor, andenvironmental policies. In the case of the city of Buenos Aires, the presence of thousandsof informal recyclers dedicated to the recovery of recyclable materials for their subsistencehas given a particular imprint to the design of these policies, the focus of which hasbeen the social inclusion of these workers through the creation of cooperatives. An examination of the assumptions underlying the use of the concept of informality in the development of cooperatives for recycling from 2007 to 2013 shows that they are part of a complex process in which measures for increasing rights and protections are associated with various forms of labor instability.