One of the focuses of the Cataunidos-Petrobras project has been the improvement of infrastructure for organizations of catadores. Lack of physical space and equipment is a key difficulty facing many fledgling associations and cooperatives. Individual catadores often begin their work on the street, sorting material on the side of the road and sleeping under their carts. In the dumps, catadores often store their materials in bags out in the open air, and some even sleep in the dumps to protect this accumulated wealth. Many organizations of catadores in their infancy simply continue this same activity in groups. As I mentioned before, ASMARE actually got its start when street catadores began to look for a safe space to sort their materials after repeated harassment by the police on the sidewalks and alleyways of Belo Horizonte. The cooperatives thus often begin with clear material needs.
The most crucial infrastructure element is the warehouse. As the physical location where material is collected, sorted, pressed, and stored, a good, functional warehouse is one of the most important traits of a successful cooperative. Equipment such as conveyor belts for sorting, push carts for transporting bags, presses to compact and organize material, scales to weigh loads and record data, grinders for shredding paper and glass, and forklifts for loading the trucks all help to improve the production process and work conditions within the warehouse.
However, none of this infrastructure comes cheap. Accumulating capital to build warehouses and purchase equipment is extremely difficult for the cooperatives given their limited revenue and the understandable desire among catadores to divide profit amongst themselves rather than investing in the long-term growth of the organization. In practice, therefore, catadores depend on support from the government and partner institutions to finance these infrastructure projects.
Often, municipal governments are the most important actors in this regard. Some municipalities build warehouses, and others agree to pay rent or “cede” (legal term providing temporary operating rights) existing spaces to the cooperatives. Recently, the national Accelerated Growth Program (PAC) of the federal government has allotted significant resources to improve infrastructure among the organizations. The ultimate goal is for the cooperatives to fully own this infrastructure instead of depending on the long term generosity of government actors, as this undermines their autonomy and leaves them vulnerable to political volatility. (In many cases in Brazil and elsewhere, cooperatives of catadores have been decimated by turnover of political administrations, especially at the municipal level.)
Through its working partnerships with municipal governments, federal authorities and Petrobras, INSEA has been able to make new infrastructure projects a focus of its efforts. The original nine enterprises of Cataunidos as well as the seventeen new organizations have a wide variety of needs that we are trying to fulfill. These range from very basic (some of the new organizations do not have warehouses and lack even the most basic equipment) to more advanced (several organizations are upgrading to new warehouses). One thing that is interesting to note is that by comparing the needs of the newer organizations to those with more advanced concerns, you get a better appreciation of how much progress the older cooperatives have made in their short period of existence.
However, the process of infrastructure improvement is not just about accumulating funds. Often, bureaucratic delays can create nightmares for the catadores. Brazil as a whole is famously slow in overcoming bureaucratic impediments to infrastructure projects, as the current fiasco regarding preparation for the World Cup has clearly illustrated. This reality applies equally to the catadores. Although PAC funds have been in the pipelines for years, many projects have yet to actually begin. And even when they do begin, random hurdles can appear out of nowhere. ASCAP in Nova Lima broke ground on its new warehouse last year, but the project ground to a halt when the transport authority decided midway through construction that the site was too close to a main highway and thus shut it down. (Pictures of the stalled construction to come later.) Overcoming these hurdles is essential, but as even Sports Minister Orlando Silva has discovered, it is not always easy.
It is also important to note that these infrastructure projects are not one-time-only initiatives. As the organizations grow and develop, their needs are continually changing. Most commonly, materials increase over time as catadores expand their partnerships with businesses and residents and as municipalities implement recycling programs. Even the most advanced organizations are constantly looking to renovate their existing spaces, expand their warehouse, or move to a more strategic location. (Regarding location, many warehouses are often built on the cheapest and least desirable land in the city, creating all sorts of transport and logistics issues.) Continual improvement of physical capital is an important goal for the cooperatives, just as it is with most private enterprises. Over the long term, however, our goal is for the catadores to be able to make some of these investments themselves as their businesses grow and develop. It remains to be seen, however, if this will indeed be possible.
Dr. Lima and his team of engineers have a long history accompanying infrastructure projects and production processes within the cooperatives. One of the key aspects of our work at the research laboratory is to guide this process of infrastructure improvement to make sure capital investments are well suited to the actual needs of the catadores. While it is impossible to talk of an ideal layout for a warehouse due to the peculiarities of each organization (how material is collected and stored, how the production process is organized, division of labor, etc), we do have a set of general guidelines that good warehouses should follow. For example, it is important to have a separate entrance and exit in order to maintain a directional flow of materials. Also, there should be a way of controlling overflow of materials so that newly arrived recycling is not sprawled throughout the warehouse, thus impeding the flow of the production process. We are currently visiting sorting warehouses throughout the region to study and record various layouts and techniques. Hopefully, this will allow us to provide better guidance on future infrastructure projects. Without good scientific study of principles of sorting warehouses, many warehouses are hastily designed and constructed and the entire production process within the new spaces quickly becomes a mess. Our goal is to avoid that problem and make infrastructure improvement not just fast, but also strategic.
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