Reciclagem, questão ambiental e inclusão social no Amazonas: o caso dos catadores de papelão

Abstract

Research in focus Recycling, Environmental Issues and Social Inclusion in the Amazon: The Case of the Cardboard Collectors aimed for understanding, analyzing and characterizing the recycling of cardboard in the Industrial Pole of Manaus (PIM). The study included four associations of collectors located in the city of Manaus. These actors perform an activity of collecting recyclable materials in cities. The collectors play a key role, constituting many social relations, characterized by a set of contradictions. The collectors are fundamental to the promotion of recycling and for the transformation of a natural and social world in an ecologically healthier, even if "pay" with their lives because of illness produced in such activity. In this context, the research introduces the need of achieving a work space and respect for the category of papers collectors. When collecting post-consumer papers, the collectors will sell them to a sorting center in the city, if not linked to any association of collectors. The low quantity and quality of paper collected causes a low sale price. Generally, the collectors become victims of exploitation of its activity, living in inhuman conditions, without access to health, nutrition and education. All these social problems, of course, expand to their families. Therefore, the object of this study was the social inclusion, from the perspective of social sustainability. Therefore, we used the ethnographic method, using a theoretical-methodological fundamentation, based in a collection of quantitative and qualitative data, through the application of semi-structured interviews and the socioeconomic analysis of secondary data. These instruments sought to contribute to the avaliation of the social, environmental and economic aspects of the associations of collectors. This research had the aim of proposing the creation of a model of social inclusion to develop the activity of the cardboard collectors. In this sense, identifies the productive chain of the cardboard in PIM, include the recent National Policy on Solid Waste (PNRS) and their impacts and, finally, examines the four associations of cardboard collectors in the city of Manaus. This research investigated whether the recycling of cardboard in the city of Manaus contributes to social inclusion of cardboard collectors. Therefore, the results clarify that the current lack of public policies, the lack of access to public services such as health, education and housing, the informality of the work of papers collectors, the concentration of profits arising from the recycling process by recycling industries at the expense of scavengers, confirms the maintenance scenario of social exclusion of these workers.