www.flacsoandes.edu.ec HARVARD REVIEW OF

WINTER 2015 VOLUME XIV NO. 2

Published by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Harvard University

IN EVERY ISSUE

BOOK TALK GARBAGE Breeding Gangs 77 A Review by Marcela Valdes

FIRST TAKE Art as Civic Acupuncture 79 Waste by Marty Chen 2 A Review by Pedro Reina-Pérez

TRANSFORMATIONS Bringing the War to Mexico 80 Trash as Treasure by William L. Fash and E. Wyllys Andrews 8 A Review by Andrea Oñate Recycle the Classics by Doris Sommer 11 A Recycling (of) Tradition: A Photoessay by Andrew Lantz 14 Tracing Back Marijuana Stigma 82 Trash into Treasure by Tina Montalvo and Charles Martin 16 A Review by Viridiana Ríos

RECYCLING LIVES BUILDING BRIDGES Living off Trash in Latin America by Martin Medina 20 We Make Things Happen 84 Recycling Livelihoods by Lucía Fernández and Martha Chen 25 by Marcela Rentería Ciudad Saludable by Albina Ruiz Ríos 29 The Sound of Garbage by Rocío López Íñigo 32 A Long Way from the Dump by Evelyn Mansilla 34

THE ART OF TRASH Trash Moves by Maite Zubiaurre 38 Beautiful Trash by Paola Ibarra 41 ONLINE Daniel Lind-Ramos by Lowell Fiet 44 Look for more content online at A Present from the Sea by Sonia Cabanillas 46 revista.drclas.harvard.edu Burning Messages by Michael Wellen 48 Haiti in the Time of Trash by Linda Khachadurian 50 Thinking on Film and Trash by Ernesto Livon-Grosman 53

CONFRONTING WASTE ON THE COVER Privatizing Latin American Garbage? It’s Complicated… by Sarah Hill 56 “Descarga Cero” by Jake Trash in the Water by James Howe and Libby McDonald 60 Kheel, environmental director of Puntacana Resort & Club Zero Waste in Punta Cana by Jake Kheel 63 in the Dominican Republic, 66 Recycling in Guatemala: A Photoessay by Kellie Cason O’Connor shows waste before being Buenos Aires by Jessica Sequeira 70 processed in its ambitious Transforming Values by Julia Leitner 73 Zero Waste Program.

REVISTA.DRCLAS.HARVARD.EDU ReVista 1 Recycling Livelihoods A Global Network Supports Waste Pickers in Latin America BY LUCÍA FERNÁNDEZ AND MARTHA CHEN

STANDING FOR LONG HOURS IN LINE TO RECEIVE tool in preparing its successful bid—a your first paycheck may sound pretty historical legal victory for waste pickers. stressful. However, for recyclers in Bogo- Beginning in March 2013, thousands of tá, their first paycheck was a huge victory wastepickers have been getting paid for after more than twenty years of legal and the tons of recyclable materials they col- political struggles—proof of the power of lect every day from the streets of Bogotá. committed partnerships between academ- The Bogotá model for integrating ics and workers in the informal economy. waste pickers, through their organiza- In 2010, the global action-research- tions, into the existing municipal solid policy network Women in Informal waste management is to be replicated Employment: Globalizing and Orga- across , according to a recent nizing (WIEGO) and the Asociación de decision by the Ministry of Environment, Recicladores de Bogotá (ARB) conduct- showing what is possible when munici- ed joint research on a waste management pal governments decide to partner with financial modeling tool. In late 2011, waste pickers and their associations. It Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled is also a powerful example of WIEGO’s that waste picker associations should be work with waste pickers in Latin Amer- allowed to bid for solid waste manage- ica over the past six years, in this case in ment contracts, mandating that their collaboration with ARB and the efforts organizers should submit bids by March of WIEGO’s regional waste picker coor- 2013. ARB used the financial modeling dinator in Bogotá, Federico Parra.

REVISTA.DRCLAS.HARVARD.EDU ReVista 25 GARBAGE

WASTE PICKERS began building a national network of WITHOUT BORDERS organizations of waste pickers across In March 2008, WIEGO and the Aso- in 2001. Today, MNCR has more ciación de Recicladores de Bogotá (ARB) than 80,000 catadores in its member- co-hosted the first international confer- ship, organized into local cooperatives ence in the Colombian capital of waste and sub-national networks. pickers, meeting in Bogotá. Latin Amer- Sonia Dias from Belo Horizonte, Bra- ica was chosen as the venue for the con- zil, WIEGO’s waste picker sector special- ference as it was the first region to have ist, has worked for the recognition and a regional network of informal worker professionalization of catadores for near- organizations: Red Latinoamericana de ly thirty years since her early involve- Recicladores (Red Lacre). More than ment in the Waste and Citizenship forum 300 recyclers and their supporters from of Minas Gerais. More recently, she has 34 countries around the world partici- focused her research and activism on pated in the conference. gender relations and dynamics among The two of us met at that conference. waste pickers with a view to increasing Lucía Fernández, who had done pioneer- women’s leadership in these organiza- ing work in support of waste pickers tions and networks. In 2013, after a across Latin America from her native participatory research process, WIEGO, Uruguay, was asked to coordinate the MNCR and a local university launched event and eventually became WIEGO’s a Gender and Waste project. It seeks to global waste picker coordinator. Martha understand the multiple levels of dis- (Marty) Chen, WIEGO’s co-founder and crimination that women waste pickers international coordinator, announced face in the home and workplace, and in a speech that WIEGO was planning as leaders in their networks and move- to work with and support waste pickers ments. “This project is very important and their associations around the world, for us women recyclers, as it has enabled as we had done with home-based work- us to exercise our autonomy,” said ers and street vendors since 1997 when MNCR leader Madalena Duarte. Hun- WIEGO was founded. Today we support dreds of Brazilian women recyclers have the virtual platform globalrec.org for the been empowered through the Gender Global Alliance of Waste Pickers, sharing and Waste project, one of the first of its more than thousands news from waste kind in Latin America. WIEGO expects pickers around the world. to scale up the project and continue to empower women recyclers, dissemi- WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AND nating the findings of the project while INCLUSION IN BRAZIL starting a similar process with women Brazil did not win the last football World waste pickers from other countries in Cup, but waste pickers there, known as Latin America. catadores de materiales reciclables, won the contract to collect waste from the 12 World Cup stadiums. Thus, around 840 catadores organized in coopera- tives were able to recover more than 400 Previous: Waste pickers work in one of the world’s largest dumpsites, La Chureca, tons of recyclable materials—a major Managua, Nicaragua, 2013. Top left: Catado- victory that likewise had years of “train- ras from the Brazilian movement of waste ing” behind it. Brazil is the country with pickers MNCR during a street demonstra- the most experience, not only in Latin tion at RIO+20, Rio de Janeiro, June 2012; America but internationally, in organiz- Top right: Working as a waste picker for more than 50 years in Managua, Nicaragua, ing waste pickers and securing support February 2012; Bottom: The mountain on for them from the government and civil the left is made by waste; in the background society. The Movimento Nacional de Cat- is a typical natural Nicaraguan mountain, adores de Materiais Reciclavels (MNCR) February 2012.

26 ReVista WINTER 2015 PHOTO ON PREVIOUS PAGE BY FEDERICO PARRA; TOP LEFT, PHOTO BY DEIA DE BRITO; ALL OTHERS BY LUCÍA FERNÁNDEZ REVISTA.DRCLAS.HARVARD.EDU ReVista 27 GARBAGE

Recicladores from the Association of Recyclers of Bogotá sort waste at one of their cooperatives during field visits during the First World Conference of Waste Pickers in March 2008.

RECYCLING IN NICARAGUA livelihoods and protect individuals from and integrating them into national poli- For more than fifty years, Juana Rafaela the threats facing the sector. In Central cies and city schemes for solid waste man- Juárez collected, sorted and sold recycla- America, as in the rest of Latin America, agement. WIEGO is grateful to be able ble materials at a landfill in Matagalpa, privatization of the collection and dis- to continue to support these processes, Nicaragua. In February 2012, with Red- posal of waste together with the use of knowing that there are many challenges Lacre and Red de Emprendedores del technologies, notably incinerators, that ahead for waste pick to secure their liveli- Reciclaje de Nicaragua (RedNica), Lucia do not promote recycling were identified hoods and dignify their profession. Fernández and other WIEGO colleagues as the key threats faced by waste pickers. co-organized the first regional confer- Lucía Fernández is an international ence of waste pickers in Central America. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE specialist on informal recycling, working They named the conference after Juana In 2008, when the international confer- for more than ten years with waste pick- Rafaela, in honor of her hard work and ence was held in Bogotá, only five coun- ers organizations from 20 countries. She who also stands as a symbol of countless tries were part of Red Lacre, the regional is an architect with a Master’s degree in anonymous waste pickers. network of waste picker organizations: ethics and sustainable development and The year before, WIEGO had sup- Argentina, Brazil, , Colombia and had a research affiliation with MIT. ported an extensive mapping of waste Uruguay. Today, national networks or pickers in Central America carried out by movements of recyclers exist in 12 more Martha Alter Chen is a lecturer in the leaders of established waste pickers Latin American and Central American public policy at the Harvard Kennedy organizations in the region. They visited countries: , Costa Rica, Dominican School, an affiliated professor at the ten countries in Central America and the Republic, , Honduras, Nicaragua, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Caribbean, meeting their peers, most Panama, Paraguay, , Puerto Rico and international coordinator of the global of whom were unorganized, promoting . Red Lacre continues to be research-policy-action network Women and encouraging the importance of the a pioneer model for waste pickers from in Informal Employment: Globalizing organization as a way to improve their other regions, organizing waste pickers and Organizing (WIEGO).

28 ReVista WINTER 2015 PHOTO BY LESLIE TUTTLE