National Solid Waste Policy in Brazil: Employment, Income, and the Experience of Cooperatives

Abstract

The cooperative society of solid waste collectors depends on public policies aimed at the basic sanitation sector. In governments that adopt/implement policies to encourage the selective collection of solid waste, cooperatives tend to develop: the number of cooperative members and the volume processed increase. The experience of ASMARE and COOPAMARE perfectly illustrates this pattern. In progressive governments, where there is a clear objective to stimulate activity, both cooperatives have flourished. However, they lost cooperative members and reduced their activity in periods when the same policies were emptied. The analysis reinforces the need to reactivate policies to encourage the selective collection of solid waste, in an inclusive and solidary way.