Socio-technological developments for the Sustainability of the work of urban reclaimers

Abstract

This paper deals with the experience of the Cooperativa Recicladores Unidos Ltda and its process of socio-technical adaptation to the need arising from the implementation of a municipal regulation of La Plata which restricts the collection of recoverable waste by blood traction (with horses), which entailed a risk for the activity of the cartoneros (cardboard collectors). Therefore, we can consider it as a Case Study. This is an approach to a specific fact of observation which becomes an object of in-depth analysis from different dimensions or variables and from different data collection strategies; its objective being to understand or characterize it. In this sense, this work will try to account for the creation of an artifact, the cart pushed by the cardboard collectors themselves, the introduction of a collaborative system of collection among urban waste pickers, an organizational technique that allows the recognition of workers as such: the cooperative and a rethinking or not of the classical deterministic vision of value addition with economic preeminence.