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Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil

There are almost 8 billion people on the planet with every single one of them producing some type of waste. The cost of recycling and money made by selling recyclable products has created a strong foundation for informal waste picking to exist. Waste pickers sort through garbage to find recyclable m...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Rava Zolnikov, Tara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10124549/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2023.2201328
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author Rava Zolnikov, Tara
author_facet Rava Zolnikov, Tara
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description There are almost 8 billion people on the planet with every single one of them producing some type of waste. The cost of recycling and money made by selling recyclable products has created a strong foundation for informal waste picking to exist. Waste pickers sort through garbage to find recyclable material; it is estimated that there are around 20 million waste pickers worldwide. In 2022, I went to experience life as a waste picker in Brasilia, Brazil for a day to understand issues that may continue to exist in this informal industry. I worked in a triage center and used this experience to inform my autoethnography; even though I have worked in waste picker research for almost a decade, this experience led to a different conclusion. The most interesting issue that I found while working as a waste picker was the lack of uniformity in waste picking, which led to people working on the streets or in co-op triage centers. This population is vulnerable which is worsened from exposure to hazards by nature of the informal environment; this situation contributes to ongoing poor working conditions through lack of governmental oversight, policy development, and change. Ultimately, informality needs to be addressed.
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spelling pubmed-101245492023-04-25 Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil Rava Zolnikov, Tara Glob Public Health Editorial There are almost 8 billion people on the planet with every single one of them producing some type of waste. The cost of recycling and money made by selling recyclable products has created a strong foundation for informal waste picking to exist. Waste pickers sort through garbage to find recyclable material; it is estimated that there are around 20 million waste pickers worldwide. In 2022, I went to experience life as a waste picker in Brasilia, Brazil for a day to understand issues that may continue to exist in this informal industry. I worked in a triage center and used this experience to inform my autoethnography; even though I have worked in waste picker research for almost a decade, this experience led to a different conclusion. The most interesting issue that I found while working as a waste picker was the lack of uniformity in waste picking, which led to people working on the streets or in co-op triage centers. This population is vulnerable which is worsened from exposure to hazards by nature of the informal environment; this situation contributes to ongoing poor working conditions through lack of governmental oversight, policy development, and change. Ultimately, informality needs to be addressed. Taylor & Francis 2023-04-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10124549/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2023.2201328 Text en © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
spellingShingle Editorial
Rava Zolnikov, Tara
Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil
title Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil
title_full Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil
title_fullStr Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil
title_full_unstemmed Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil
title_short Stop treating waste pickers like garbage: An autoethnography on informal waste picking in Brazil
title_sort stop treating waste pickers like garbage: an autoethnography on informal waste picking in brazil
topic Editorial
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10124549/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2023.2201328
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