Minas Gerais State Recycling Conference

A few weeks ago (yes, this is another very delayed blog post), I attended a three day conference here in Belo Horizonte sponsored by the Mineiro Solid Waste Reference Center (CMRR). Created in 2007, the mission of the CMRR is to act as the central reference point for projects, partnerships and information sharing regarding integrated solid waste management in the state of Minas Gerais. The current executive director of the CMRR is actually the founder of INSEA and has a long history of working with organizations of catadores all across the state. The full title of the conference (loosely translated) was "Toward a Minas with Recycling and Socio-productive Inclusion of Catadores."

The Conference

Attendance at the conference was about 400 people, mostly leaders of organizations of catadores from across the state and municipal government representatives. There were also representatives from various NGOs and businesses. The three days included panel discussions, debates, and focus groups. Also, outside of the conference space under a large tent, the CMRR set up demonstrations of recycling equipment used by organizations of catadores. The businesses who produce the equipment marketed their goods and interested catadores and municipal technicians could get a chance to see how the technologies work. Equipment included presses, conveyor belts (for sorting), grinders and gas-powered carts.

The ultimate goal of the conference was to brainstorm and discuss ideas regarding the implementation of recycling programs through organizations of catadores and then create a "final document" outlining as many of these suggestions as possible. During the conference, the president of the Foundation for the Environment (FEAM), an organ of the State Ministry of the Environment, presented the State Recycling Plan, which was then "approved" by the assembly through a round of applause.

Generally speaking, I tend to be a bit skeptical of big conferences and events because I feel like very rarely are meaningful ideas actually discussed and debated. It seems to me like the ideas tend to be agreed upon ahead of time between a small group of actors and that most of the conference is more of a show to give an appearance of greater democratic participation. After all, how can you really have a meaningful debate regarding specific aspects of aproposal in a group of 400 people? This conference seemed to follow a similar script. I'm not saying that I disagreed with the ideas discussed or the final products (the Final Document and the State Recycling Program, which seem to heavily overlap), and I did find some of the panel discussions and focus groups interesting and informative. But in terms of the practical effect of moving the movement forward, I didn't find the whole exercise all that useful. But, as always, I loved the theater and music performances from the catadores, which I think do an incredible job of instilling pride and excitement regarding the movement in general.

That being said, I do think it is important to have this sort of large, state-level conference to provide a launching point to expand and improve state coordination and mobilize all actors involved. In that sense, I think the practical benefit of the conference was less the specific generation of ideas and proposals, and more the general impetus it will provide as we continue to develop our programs in the future.

Public Service Provision and the Future of Government-Catador Partnerships

The biggest idea to come out of the conference was the goal of transforming the current relationship between municipal governments and organizations of catadores. Right now these programs often function as social projects, with the municipal government providing support and funding and limited income coming only through the sale of recyclables on the private market. However, right now catadores also provide a public service for the community by collecting, sorting and reinserting recyclables into the supply chain of raw materials. This public service should be the responsibility of the municipal government, but currently it is performed not by government workers but rather by catadores who are not even reimbursed for the positive externality they are creating within their communities. A new proposal presented during the conference was to create a "Recycling Grant" where municipal governments would reimburse catadores for the public service they provide. In addition, the hope is to turn organizations of catadores into public service providers that sign formal contracts with municipal governments to handle recycling services for the cities.

Basically, this process implies two fundamental transformations. First, municipal governments would finally have an explicit obligation to create recycling programs in their communities and designate sufficient resources to that end. Second, organizations of catadores would have to develop formal, business-like structures that enable them to be efficient service providers for municipal governments.

Without a doubt, this is an admirable goal and one that I believe we have to work toward. But I do have some serious reservations about the methods being proposed. In several conversations, people have admitted to me that the idea of the "Recycling Grant" really came about from brainstorming about how to guarantee more income for the catadores. I certainly support the idea of catadores being reimbursed for the public service they currently provide, but this model seems too simplistic to me. If we are really going to say that recycling is a public service that is the responsibility of the municipal government, then our goal must be to create integrated waste management systems that adequately dispose of trash and recycle as much material as possible. The idea is to increase recycling to its maximum capacity, which means creating bold new initiatives and not continuing with business as usual. A simple cash transfer from municipal governments to organizations of catadores will not achieve this goal.

If the bigger picture initiative is to obligate governments to accept responsibility for adequate integrated waste management and then contract out these services, then I believe we need to vastly increase the capabilities of the organizations of catadores. I am still learning about contracting for waste management services in general, but I have a hard time believing that it would be possible for catadores to sign contracts just for disposal of inorganic recyclable materials while everything else is left to a separate private contractor, especially given the fragile nature of source separation programs (i.e. having people separate their recyclables into separate bins) in most municipalities. I believe that to truly be effective partners of municipal governments, organizations of catadores will need to learn how to handle more material, such as collecting organic materials and recycling them through composting and/or generation of biogas. Otherwise, the catadores will continue to be marginal actors in the waste management sector occupying a small niche of managing inorganic recycling (which makes up approximately 30% of total waste generated in most urban communities).

However, the bigger issue, and one I plan to revisit often in this blog, has less to do with which materials are handled by the catadores and more to do with their organizational capacity. Throughout my time here I have been amazed time and again by the strength, resilience and pride of the catadores and by what they have been able to accomplish within such a short time frame. The ability of these associations and cooperatives to survive and develop under such difficult circumstances is truly remarkable. Yet I am often left worried if this movement as it is currently constituted has a ceiling.

It is wonderful that the organizations of catadores are staffed and managed by the catadores themselves and are focused on the independence of the movement and solidarity among its members. But at the same time, most of the catadores have little formal education or experience with administration or financial management. As a result, there is an acute lack of business expertise within the organizations that undermines their ability to grow into more formal enterprises. These are not typical start-up companies: the cooperatives and associations often have explicit goals of equality, inclusion and democracy that conflict with traditional business models that emphasize hierarchy, cost-cutting and competitive incentive structures. I strongly admire these characteristics and I think there is a lot of value in this movement, but I worry at times that this will hold back the catadores from ever developing the ability to be a formal business that can sign contracts with municipal governments and act reliably and professionally within the framework of a public-private partnership.

So while I absolutely support the goal of formal contracts for service provision, I worry that we may be putting the cart before the horse and having these organizations assume a responsibility that they are not yet prepared for. I will return to the topic of organizational capacity and business models in future posts about the CATAUNIDOS network.


Pictures

Luciano (INSEA President) presenting during a panel discussion

Music performance by MNCR representatives


Our CATAUNIDOS exhibit outside the conference hall

Demonstration of conveyor belt for sorting recyclables

CATAFORTE Training Program in Southern Minas

So first off, my apologies for taking such a long break from updating this blog. I had been meaning to update for a while, but it got a bit lost in the shuffle as I became busier with work and everything I was learning. I'm going to try and start updating on a weekly basis now, and use this as a way for me to reflect on my experience here. I'm going to make a few quick posts in a row to try and catch up on some of the most important events/lessons I have experienced over the last two months.

A few weeks ago, I accompanied Guilherme (an INSEA technician) and Gilberto (a leader of the Cataunidos network of cooperatives here in BH) on a trip to Southern Minas, to a town called Três Corações. We spent the weekend here wrapping up a training program sponsored by INSEA called "CATAFORTE - Strengthening of Associativity and Cooperativeness among Recycling Collectors." Sponsored by the Bank of Brazil, CATAFORTE is a six-month program designed to build a foundation among catadores so that they can build or strengthen cooperatives and eventually integrate into the National Movement of Catadores.

CATAFORTE consists of 6 modules, each taking place over one weekend each month. The modules are as follows:

Module 1: Initial participatory diagnostics - Identity of the catador;challenges and opportunities; history of the profession, including organization and creation of the MNCR.

Module 2: Diagnostic of the principal challenges facing organizations of catadores; Recycling within the context of urban development, environmentalism and sustainability.

Module 3: Recycling technology and logistics; Public policies regarding solid waste management; The supply chain of recyclable materials.

Module 4: Management and logistics of productive enterprises; Formalizing productive enterprises; Strategic planning and democratic decision-making.

Module 5: The concept of the "solidarity economy"; Building networks to commercialize goods; Democracy, power and society.

Module 6: The history of social movements in Brazil; Development and social transformation; Public policies and local power; Final evaluation.

Since I only got to sit in on the final weekend class (Module 6, with a little bit of catching up from Module 5), I can't really comment fully on the entire process. That being said, I did leave the weekend with plenty of impressions.

The first thing that really struck me was just how difficult the training process is. While CATAFORTE comes with a detailed curriculum and lesson plans (prepared by INSEA's pedagogical coordinator, Aline), it is hard to make instruction completely effective in practice given the precarious situation of many of the participants. A good number of them are illiterate, have no formal education, or even suffer from learning disabilities. It is really difficult to build an effective training course when your students do not have a strong base to use for their learning. At times, it seemed hard to tell what was really sinking in, and the disparities between the students were striking (as is the case in many classroom settings). Looking over the lesson plans in detail and comparing them with my practical observations, it was pretty clear to me that most of the students did not "master" the material.

However, I don't think that is necessarily even the goal of CATFORTE. The principal effect seemed to me to be bringing all of the catadores together to discuss building cooperatives and associations and getting them used to working together and thinking about their profession in the context of the big picture. CATAFORTE is simply the first step in a long, difficult process of building a cooperative spirit and skill development to enable these organizations to grow and thrive. By itself, the course does not count for much, and will not change these people's lives in a significant way. But it does get them to think a bit, helps them to network with their peers, and builds the pride and self-confidence (especially through our presentation of graduation certificates) that will help the catadores to take the next step. Everything seems to depend on the follow-up.

Yet, the follow-up is much easier said than done. I haven't looked into this issue in detail, but it seems to me that the expansion of the CATAFORTE program has not yet been matched by the expansion of detailed organizational strategies where INSEA and its partners send technicians to these municipalities to work with the newly-trained catadores and their municipal government partners to begin the long and grueling work of building a functioning cooperative. The danger, obviously, is that CATAFORTE creates a big expectation among the catadores and then the follow-up is delayed for so long that it leaves a huge sense of disappointment and ultimately results in a wasted effort. But again, this is just my initial impression. One issue that INSEA seems to face is a lack of funds to contract capable technicians to accompany these cooperatives and associations over the long term to guarantee that they move past the initial stages of organizing and planning into actually executing the projects. (Much more on this later.)

One aspect of CATAFORTE that I really appreciated was that it was not just taught by INSEA technicians. In fact, the training team consisted of one technician (Guilherme) and two catadores who were active leaders in the MNCR - Gilberto and Luenia (a local leader from Southern Minas). Having Gilberto and Luenia there really made the course more accessible I think, and they were able to show by example just how far catadores are able to come through this movement if they stick with it. Guilherme did a great job leading the course, but as he himself admitted, Gilberto and Luenia are the ones who are really able to drive the messages home because they can relate on a much more personal level to the students. I have found that this is not only the case during our training programs. In general when working with the catadores it is so essential for us to have MNCR leaders working with us who can help facilitate dialogue and build trust and cooperation.

On a more personal note, this experience was absolutely great for me. It wasn't only about seeing how the CATAFORTE program works in practice. It was a great opportunity for me to have more direct, personal interactions with the catadores. Going into the weekend, I was a bit nervous because I wasn't sure how they would look at me. I feared that I wouldn't be useful at all and that the whole time would just feel really awkward. I couldn't have been more wrong. The catadores were fascinated to see a gringo there, and the fact that I was coming all the way from the US to study their movement really helped make them feel more proud of what they could accomplish. They loved talking with me, and I was able to interact with them much more easily than I expected, although I did have some difficulty understanding their accents. I also helped lead some of the focus groups, and it was really the first time here that I began to feel that I really can play a productive role and that the gap between me and the catadores isn't as wide as I can imagine.

There were plenty of lighthearted moments as well. One day some of the catadores pulled a prank on me - they sent me out into the town to look for a "glass-cutting hammer" that they said they needed for some reason. I was a bit confused as to what this meant (I figured I was just translating the words wrong) or why they would need this tool, but I just decided to go with it. After getting a bunch of blank looks from various shopkeepers, I returned to the center empty-handed. The entire room burst out laughing. Of course, there is no such thing as a glass-cutting hammer and they all just thought it would be funny to send the gringo out on a wild goose chase around town looking for one. It became a constant joke for the rest of the weekend, and definitely helped me get closer with everyone. We also went out on Saturday night to a local bar where we played pool, drank, and danced to sertaneja (Brazilian country music). I can't say I'm much of a natural, but everyone got a kick out of taking turns trying to teach me.

Some pictures from the weekend:

Group discussion with MNCR flag in the middle

Guilherme giving a speech on the "solidarity economy"

Our MNCR representatives: Luenia and Gilberto

(Note: Luenia's pink shirt was from a conference of female MNCR leaders in Curitiba)

Focus group discussion: MNCR in context of social movements in Brazil

Group with certificates after graduation