CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The objective of this paper is to analyse the role social and solidarity economy plays in economic and labor insertion and in the construction of social bonds of the cartoneros (scavengers) belonging to cooperatives of the City of Buenos Aires (CABA). The collection of urban solid waste (USW) on the streets increased notably in the mid ´90s in Argentina. In the major urban centers the appearing of thousands of cartoneros was the initial step towards the development of an activity that generated not only a strong economic impact but also arised many questions and transformations about current environmental policies. In the case of the Metropolitan Area, at the beginnings of the year 2000, it was estimated that around 25,000 households (100,000 people aprox.) were living on the informal collection (most of them being residents of the suburbs of Buenos Aires), that worked individually or in a familiar way. Argentinian peso devaluation in 2002 and the consequent end of the exchange parity, led to a strong increase of those commodities prices that came from importation which were used by several national industries. This implied a fast growth of the waste management industry. The increase of production costs led different industrial sectors to use recyclable inputs in order to support its profits (mainly plastic, glass and the paper cardboard industries). Since the cartoneros were in the weakest point in the chain of production, several workers decided to organize themselves. It was then when the first cartoneros´ cooperatives of Buenos Aires City (CABA) emerged. Even though their initial objective was to reduce intermediaries in the commercialization, these organizations developed different kind of actions, such as employment generation, environmental promotion and the support to communal institutions. Likewise, the changes in the public policies of urban hygiene reinforced the existing cooperatives and encouraged the constitution of new organizations. The new Buenos Aires City regulations enabled the USW collection on the streets (until then forbidden) and gave a frame of action to those organizations, through the construction of USW classifying centers. At present, there are 15 cooperatives working in Buenos Aires City (CABA), with approximately 3,500 associated workers. In this paper I present part of the results obtained from my own field work carried out during the last 5 years, from which I have developed a characterization and analysis of the cartoneros´ cooperatives working in the City of Buenos Aires. The methods of data collection used consist of unstructured interviews, participant observation and the application of questionnaires.