An Analysis of Policies in Support of Waste Collecting in Rio de Janeiro – Three Case Studies

The waste collector has become a locus of public policy activity due to a number of factors: the type of waste produced subsequent to the industrial revolution, the advent of a consumption society, the scarcity of natural resources, the problem of containment, and the development of recycling technologies. The repetitive nature and connectedness of these problems justify the conceptualization of recycling as a discursive practice (FOUCAULT, 1972, 1984; MACHADO, 1981). This repetitive nature encompasses not only the production of new discourses (discursive and non-discursive practices) on waste and the waste collector, but also the emergence of entrepreneurial segments of an economy based on recycling, and a change of habits among consumers, among others.


Introduction
The waste collector has become a locus of public policy activity due to a number of factors: the type of waste produced subsequent to the industrial revolution, the advent of a consumption society, the scarcity of natural resources, the problem of containment, and the development of recycling technologies. The repetitive nature and connectedness of these problems justify the conceptualization of recycling as a discursive practice (FOUCAULT, 1972(FOUCAULT, , 1984MACHADO, 1981). This repetitive nature encompasses not only the production of new discourses (discursive and non-discursive practices) on waste and the waste collector, but also the emergence of entrepreneurial segments of an economy based on recycling, and a change of habits among consumers, among others.
In this sense, post-consumer waste that was once associated with danger-a threat to health and to the environment-and that once provoked repulsion and aversion (DO CARMO, 2010;EIGENHEER, 2003;RODRIGUES, 1995), is currently viewed as reusable material. It is associated with elements of raw material used by industries and with the income of waste collectors. This association has become possible thanks to an emerging paradigm: practices such as the development of industries devoted to the reuse of waste, the expansion of a market for recyclables (RODRIGUES, 2005), the growing awareness of society and, lastly, the policies that support the work of waste collectors. In this way, what was once repugnant becomes valuable (DO CARMO & PUPPIM DE OLIVEIRA, 2010). To be credited in large part for this change are the growing cadre of authorities, such as engineers and ecologists, who have become involved in environmental education initiatives and different types of recycling projects. It is often the desire to avoid environmental and social harms that is both waste's cause and effect.
This article shows how, just as public sector postures have changed in relation to waste, so too have they changed with regard to waste collectors. In this study, it is defined 'waste collector' as one who subsists exclusively on the sale of reusable material obtained at the source of the generator (DO CARMO, 2009b). Martin Medina (2000Medina ( , 2007 was the first to discuss the public sector's posture toward his group, and proposed four types of policies used to address waste collectors. The first approach is a policy of repression. The policy is predicated on the notion that waste collectors belong to an amorphous collection of social marginals -undesirables-and foraging constitutes an inhuman, illegal activity as well as a source of embarrassment and shame. Waste collectors are often kidnapped or expelled, such as in the case of Egypt and Colombia (MEDINA, 2000;RODRIGUEZ, 2003). According to Dias (2002), in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the municipal government took waste collectors off the streets during the 1980s; a policy that largely reflected the lack of a health-based distinction between refuse and undesirable people, such as beggars, prostitutes, and waste collectors (PORTILHO, 1997). In other countries these policies amounted to coercion, forcing people into other forms of employment. Whether because of low levels of educational attainment, aptitude, or age, these strategies commonly failed to result in enduring work for waste collectors within the formal sector (KASEVA & GUPTA, 1996;MORENO-SANCHEZ & MALDONADO, 2006).
The second approach is a policy of omission or neglect which occurs when public authorities refuse to acknowledge waste collectors and their function. In this way, they are pursued, but also they do not receive support; they are simply ignored. African cities such as Dakar, Senegal, Bamako, Mali, Cotonou, and Benin pro v i d e e x a m p l e s o f t h i s p o l i c y a t w o r k (MEDINA, 2000).
The third approach is a policy of conspiracy (collusion) which is characterized by fraud, in which government officials develop exploitative relationships with waste collectors. These relationships often reflect mutual gain and assistance, a sort of political clientilism. Mexico City provides a traditional example of this dynamic, where public authorities and waste collector-leaders, referred to as 'chiefs' or caciques, develop a complex relationship. According to Castillo Berthier (2003) and Medina (2001) these relationship are often illegal, and include not only waste collectors but depot owners, street cleaners, middlemen, businesses, and public authorities. Some of these illegal relationships involve bribing officials to disregard the behaviour of caciques.
Supportive policies 1 (the fourth approach) refers to the most recent and progressive change, whereby governments make way for initiatives to legalize the activities of waste collectors and support their activities through cooperatives. This support typically arises because of the realization that waste collectors are ideally suited to adverse situations. They are particularly important as partners in finding solutions to environmental and economic problems, and they are especially welcome in slums, where local conditions impede the use of American or European technology to manage waste. Some Asiatic countries, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, India, and Thailand, encourage foraging through import tariffs on packaging materials and by providing financing for governments to create cooperatives (COINTREAU, 1986;FUREDY, 1984;KASEVA et al., 2002;MEDINA 2000MEDINA , 2007. Many of these initiatives have been supported by the World Bank. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Bank produced a master plan for managing waste and promoting local wasterelevant technologies, many of which have been employed in Africa. The Bank's master plan questioned the wisdom of the mechanized waste disposal systems promoted by developed countries, particularly given the necessities of local environments and waste collectors (COINTREAU, 1985(COINTREAU, , 1986. In Latin America, the establishment of public-private partnerships and concessions for waste collectors to collect mixed waste provide one example of a supportive policy. Ojeda-Benitez et al. (1988) insist that it was the public authority's recognition that waste is a source of income that brought about municipal support for policies, increasing employment for low-wage areas. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, strategies to stimulate this sector became a priority at the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s. This article suggests that the economic concerns surrounding the issue of waste are the principal reason why support began to emerge, imbuing waste collectors with greater visibility and value.
In this way, the objective of this article is to present the result of policies to support the work of waste collectors in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It does so by analyzing three case studies consisting of an equal number of cooperatives and their strategies. Finally, it seeks to identify the subjective ways in which waste collectors view the processes that guide each one of the three organizations and their respective discourses.

Methodology
The purpose of this article is to portray and examine the views of waste collectors interviewed during exploratory case studies. These studies were performed on three government-supported cooperatives in Rio de Janeiro between 1994 and 2003. Three municipal public officials and 66 waste collectors responded to questions during interviews, 17 of which were open-ended and 49, semi-structured. The first case study took place between the months of June and August 2002, the second during April and October 2004, and the third between July and December 2004. Participation in state and national waste collector meetings in 2006 and 2007 provided additional interviews with people linked to the three cooperatives in question. Secondary materials, such as books and journalistic production were also used to carry out research.
This article subscribes to the notion that desires to better the economic and social conditions of waste collectors imply understanding the changing processes of these workers and their work, and how they continue to be constituted. In order to improve conditions, it is first essential to understand the process of constitution: the place of workers with respect to society, the public sector, and buyers (recycling entrepreneurs), among others. In this sense, the article discusses the discursive and non-discursive practices to which collectors were subjected as waste became an object of profit as well as an environmental and social good.
In this way, waste becomes a discursive production (FOUCAULT, 1972(FOUCAULT, , 1980(FOUCAULT, , 1984(FOUCAULT, , 1991ab, 1995 to shed light on the principles, concepts, strategies, and theories that have shaped the issues and industries pertinent to recycling and the environment. It also casts light on what is said-the discursive and non-discursive practices-with regards to the waste collector. The methodology is based on Foucault's discursive framework, which is conducive to understanding history and social construction (HARDING, 2003). It also helps us understand the results of subjective terms and their broader implications. Taking waste to be an object of revelation, the paper proposes to examine the rules and authorities that govern its existence, its historical emergence (its archaeology), and its characterizations (its genealogy). In short, it seeks to understand the transformation in discourse surrounding waste over time.

Evolution
Many waste collectors interviewed during the case studies showed that there is an effect of the negative meaning of waste in the process of constructing their professional identity (DO CARMO, 2009ab, 2010. There was a stigma attached to those who work in contact with waste (DO CARMO, 2009ab, 2010DO CARMO & PUPPIM DE OLIVEIRA, 2010;EIGENHEER, 2003;PORTILHO, 1997;RODRIGUES, 1995). It can be pointed as one of the probable justifications for their manifest lack of economic organization: "People think we're beggars" (waste collector, first case). This quote demonstrates the stigma attached to jobs involving the handling of waste-or "dirty work" (AGUNWAMBA, 2003;ASHFORTH. & KREINER, 1999;HUGHES, 1962). At the same time, the other two cases exemplify how the stigma interferes in the process of negotiation (buyers) (second case) or access (the producers) (third case) to the waste: "They [buyers and producers] prefer to negotiate with the leaders [from the cooperatives] than with us". Scrap dealers and intermediaries, people involved in this business in Brazil who merely buy and sell the recycling, are often migrants (Portuguese, Italians, Spaniards, etc.) and seem to not be included in this aspect because today they are only buyers and rarely collect, as in the past (19th century) (ADAMETES, 1998;PORTILHO, 1997).
The cultural aspects within which waste is immersed justify its negative semantic-because the signifier 'waste' (or 'garbage') is pregnant with pejorative connotations. It can refer to concepts such as degeneration, decomposition, leftovers. As an object with no use or value, it may be associated with things of poor quality or things which are out of place, chaos and mess. But it is its unpleasant and troubling characteristics (smell, appearance and formlessness) which lead to its association with things such as death, limit, ending, making it taboo (EIGENHEER, 2003;FREUD, 1976;RODRIGUES, 1992RODRIGUES, , 1995. These are the aspects which mark what it was termed in previous studies´the negative semantics of garbage` (DO CARMO, 2009ab, 2010DO CARMO & ARRUDA, 2010). Consideration as a valuable object (commodification) changes its social representation and interests, as if some waste starts to have a positive semantic when associated with recycling (DO CARMO, 2010).
The following sections address discourses surrounding waste, as well as the elements and rules that compose this discursive unity (this association with recycling). Through this analysis, the article identifies the strategies and policies of public support that have affected the conditions of waste collectors.

Discourses on waste
As a locus of public policy, waste can be associated with three distinct issues: the question of health, the environment, and economics (DO CARMO, 2010, 2008. The issue of health is linked to risks associated with the disposal and storage of waste. During a time when the sun took care of excrement and organic waste in the streets, at some risk to human health, waste was not viewed to be a problem necessitating the attention of city administrators. This picture changed with overpopulation. According to Rodrigues (1995), for example, only at the end of the nineteenth century did the French consider waste something that demanded attention and outlays of public money. Much has changed; each region now has to address this issue to the best of its ability.
As waste became a problem for cities, especially the lack of sewage disposal, diverse efforts were made to address waste. Between 1940 and 1960, the U.S. and Europe chose landfills as a preferred solution. The problem of space, however, encouraged public managers to reconsider the technologies used in public disposal. Incineration emerged as an important strategy, although it proved costly and was restricted chiefly to the more advanced countries.
Unlike developed nations, city governments in many developing nations frequently viewed waste to be an irresolvable problem (GONÇALVES, 2003;PORTILHO, 1997). Many demanded scarce resources for the purchase of expensive technologies (BARTONE, 1990). It was only at the beginning of the 1970s that the management of waste and public health were taken seriously in these countries. Many of the programs launched in the 1970s and 80s were the result of the World Bank, which carried out a mandate to look for solutions to problems of end-disposal (COINTREAU, 1986(COINTREAU, , 1985BATOOL, CHAUDHRY, MAJEED, 2008).
Waste as an environmental question garnered attention beginning in the 1950s. This attention responded to the need for new technologies in order to reuse materials and mitigate the harmful effect of overflow (CASTILLO BERTHIER, 2003). It was clear that incineration provided an inadequate solution to these issues and, motivated by environmental and social movements, developed countries became the precursors of efforts to develop new strategies and technologies. In this sense, the relationship between waste and environmental problems was established by environmentalists.
According to Portilho (1997), however, the populational density in Brazil caused by demographic explosions influenced the establishment of the above relationship, because the question of urban space became a central issue for the environmental movement. It was only in the 1960s that the environmental question would become the focus of NGOs and social movements, especially in association with issues of inequality. In the 1970s the movement attracted the attention of politicians, and the business and industrial sectors joined the fray in the 1980s and 90s. It was in the 1990s that concepts such as the '3Rs' began to gain prominence, the concept of product cycles, the waste collector as a recycler or environmental actor and, consequently, strategies reflecting these concepts, including legislation and recycling campaigns. Medina (2007) illustrates this transformation by showing how the denominations used to describe waste collectors began to change: It so happens that, when transformed into something useful-primary material-waste becomes associated with economic questions, as opposed to merely environmental issues. Economic interest emerges once there is a concomitant connection between the type of waste generated and its suitability for re-use, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the availability of people to collect waste and deliver it for negotiation and rendering. Until this happens, foraging is looked at as degrading, and waste collectors are to be distanced from urban centers by repression or have their activities ignored, thus being omitted from society.

Country or Regions
Traditional terms New Terms In Latin America: Argentina

Dominican Republic Buzos
Ecuador

Mexico Pepenadores
Peru

Waste pickers
In French-Speaking Areas:

Chiffonniers Récupétateurs
In German-Speaking Areas: Lumpensammler In Japan: Gomi-Hiroi (transliteration from Japanese) In China: Jian Polan´l (transliteration from Mandarin) The general social value placed on waste will continue to grow, as long as new discursive practices keep emerging, particularly among those who previously did not view waste as anything of economic interest. It is worth stressing that new discursive practices surrounding the concept of waste as an economic question, and the search for disposal solutions, emerge concomitantly with the scarcity of disposal options, namely storage space.
Despite the search for solutions, until recently only industrial and commercial waste was recycled; domestic waste was off bounds for the waste collector. But it was the waste collector who was eventually responsible for returning domestic waste to the production cycle. In Colombia, for example, while specialized companies collected industrial trash, waste collectors were the principal gatherers of post-consumer domestic materials (BIRKBECK, 1979a). The waste collector's exclusive interest in domestic, post-consumer waste was due to its mixed organic and inorganic nature. This mixture of waste requires relatively sophisticated technology and a large amount of capital to separate. As such, the waste collector's participation in the recycled material business is only made possible by the difficulty of obtaining the material by other means.
The selective foraging of citizens of Rio de Janeiro, in the mid 1990s, marked a new moment in the way post-consumer domestic waste (now recyclables) was purified, accessed and handled. A social perception of domestic waste's economic value meant that waste collectors began to lose the exclusive access to recyclable materials they previously enjoyed. Many workers in other sectors began to use recycling as a complement to their salaries, collecting waste in their spare time or at work, as did waiters, housecleaners, building managers, and so forth.
Although (when queried) the motivations of people who adhere to a discourse of recycling are ostensibly environmental, they are also economic: environmental awareness campaigns are developed concomitant with strategies to support waste collectors-the traditional salvagers of refuse in Rio de Janeiro-to establish fixed locations for buying and selling recyclable waste. These fixed locations, which aim to facilitate waste collector access, also attract those people who are attentive to the economic value of recyclables.

The conditions and prospects of waste collectors
According to Castillo Berthier (2003), the first systematic study of waste as a social problem was carried out in Mexico during 1983. This study was undertaken in an era when official statistics and information on the subject was inexistent. In this period, issues relevant to the environment were ignored; neither viewed as a serious problem, nor as an area worthy of study in the social sciences. The difficulty of obtaining data on the work of waste collectors is equally common in Brazil. According to the literature consulted, waste collectors were initially identified in the 1930s. (DIAS, 2002). Many people agree, however, that they only started to gain visibility in the 1970s and 1980s: If I have great production, excellent quality, supply flow, but I don't have a competitive price, then I will buy from whoever is willing to sell… As many are unable to add value, the profiteer establishes a production line of recyclables and fills eight, nine, Many academic texts affirm that once waste collectors became legitimized and incorporated into the services of waste management, their work began to gain social status. Sicular (1991) cites the example of the City of Mexico, Cairo, and regions of Indonesia, where the status of workers ameliorated as they became integrated into the public service of waste collection. Partnerships of mutual succor emerged in these places. In Brazil, Nogueira (1996) relates the experience of waste collectors in the City of Victoria who, finding work separating recyclable materials in factories, undergo a sort of identity-transformation. Addressing the idea of identity in a different vein, Dias (2002) affirms that the waste collectors of Belo Horizonte gained recognition as lawful citizens from the moment they organized an association.
Defending the notion that waste collectors gain recognition as workers and professionals once they have constructed an identity as such, Bastos (2007) suggests that an identity only emerges once it has been demonstrated that waste collectors are incorporated into the recycling production cycle. The importance of waste collector organizations is corroborated by diverse authors within Brazil and across Latin America (GONÇALVES, 2003;MEDINA, 2000MEDINA, , 2001RODRIGUEZ, 2003, among others). These observers believe that organizations make the work of waste collectors much more economically viable. Betting on the validity of affirmations such as these, the City of Rio de Janeiro advanced public policies to support the work of waste collectors, principally through the creation of cooperatives. This statement helps us think about the transition from policies of repression to policies of support; the transition has not necessarily been linear (FOUCAULT, 1972). This is especially true of the discourse surrounding waste; as indicated by issues previously discussed, in which environmental and economic questions figure prominently. Put differently, the issue's importance to environmental concerns also lends itself to its importance vis à vis economic concerns, and vice-versa. In this sense, although environmental and economic issues may be distinct, they are composed of elements that transcend the boundaries of each other's discourses (concomitance).
When new discourses about waste emerge, they inevitably involve new discourses about the environment or the economy. Public authorities provide a good example. They associate recycling as a good for the environment as well as for income-generation. Nevertheless, the norms governing a discourse on waste do not belong exclusively to specialists such as ecologists and engineers, or public managers; other actors must be considered, including psychologists, social workers, and public health workers. One thing is for sure, waste collectors are not included among these specialists: they appear as a compositional element in this discourse-as the target of diverse strategies-or as subjects of the discourse (exploited, marginalized). But despite the knowledge they acquire through experience, waste collectors never establish normative discourses themselves. As discussed, Bastos (2007) believes that the construction of a respectable waste collector identity-as a worker and professional-only emerges once s/he is recognized as part of the cycle of production.
Despite this author's affirmation, the objective of supporting policies have been to help the waste collector overcome dependence on the middleman-as long as they provided an economy of scale, added value to the gathered product, helped make workers more applied, and promoted norms of organization through cooperation. Independently of meeting these objectives, in subjective terms it is possible to affirm that, the context permitted those with knowledge to determine a form of work-cooperativism-that was not necessarily suited to waste collectors.
The Comlurb set up cooperatives and simply placed the waste collectors within them, but they did not draw up a contract. The cooperatives provided the space and structure, but they wanted to maintain control over the situation and they didn't cede space for the waste collector to negotiate. [waste collector]

Comlurb builds the cooperatives and placed the waste collectors inside, but didn't sign a contract…If there is one, it must be between Comlurb and the space administrator. It (the contract) leased the space and structured it, but wanted to be in charge of the situation and has left no room for the waste collector to negotiate. [waste collector]
On the other side of the equation, once waste collectors adapted to the system, they did not necessarily meet with economic success-better incomes-as the following section will illustrate.

The case studies
Breaking with exploitation, ameliorating working conditions and income, and diminishing the build-up of waste in dump sites were the justifications for public policies put into place in the 1990s and 2000s. As well as minimizing health risks by ensuring adequate treatment of waste, these policies also aimed to overcome the stigmas of marginality and informality (BRITO, 2001). The program consisted of installations and spaces-basic infrastructure-as a means of furnishing waste collectors with the ability to accumulate larger quantities of material, providing scale, and adding value through processes such as cleaning (of the recyclables). The Fig 1 below exemplify the recycling chain -the term used to describe the process that starts with the collection of used materials and encompasses all the stages until their final destination, the recycling plants -in Rio de Janeiro city, which is similar to other cases in developing countries. The ultimate objective of the public policies, of course, was to help waste collectors negotiate better prices. As well as providing space for materials the Comlurb also offered logistical support to help waste collectors overcome dependence on small middlemen. The earnings that once went to these intermediaries would be shared among members of the group. Among the cooperatives created during the period (18 in 1993/94 and 4 in 2003), three case studies were examined. The first case study was undertaken in a cooperative of waste collectors in the Zona Sul or southern part of Rio de Janeiro. The cooperative was administered by a Portuguese immigrant, an ex-waste collector, who bought material obtained at the source (both waste collector and non-waste collector derived) and redistributed it to medium-size middlemen.
Unlike what had been proposed by the Comlurb, and despite its scaled operation, this cooperative did not help to ameliorate the earnings of waste collectors. Negotiations were carried out as before, and the proprietor did business with medium-sized middlemen. According to the administrator, the short-term concerns of waste collectors prevented them from building up scale and being able to negotiate better prices: "There is always a segment that doesn't accept organization, which prefers anonymity. They are indeed street people, and it takes time to gain consciousness about the work". In sum, waste collectors did not live or participate within the organization's routines. They restricted their activities to negotiating with it, much the same as people who did not work exclusively as waste collectors and instead used the cooperative as a convenient place to bring recyclables and complement their incomes: "Not so much for me, because I have a job, but for people who don't, this is good. I live nearby. The waiters gather the tins and I bring them. I don't go collecting little tins on the streets, no, not me".
There is a lack of jobs, of opportunities; most waste collectors have not got elementary education and have lived on the streets for a long time. Before being collectors they were homeless, or their mothers, their grandmothers, were waste collectors and used to bring them while they worked.

[waste collector]
This comes through generations. Today…the waste collector profile is broadening; there are many unemployed people who start to collect waste and don't know how; someone brings a pal who has nothing to do and he works during that weekend but doesn't come back the next, or comes back once in a while. But the waste collector profile is that of someone from Baixada

Fluminense, who hasn't got much job opportunities and discovered scavenging as a means of income. [waste collector]
The second case study was conducted in a factory for separating select urban waste and recyclables. The factory was established by cooperatives and used competitive public procurement to select cooperatives that would administrate it. It suffered from absenteeism and rotational disputes, and had problems with training, divvying-up chores, auditing goalattainment, and negotiating the purchase of materials. For its part, the Comlurb provided a storage area for recyclables, took care of the maintenance of the installation, and recruited cooperators among which tasks were divided. The interdependence of the factory-each step depended on achieving another-meant that cooperators had to keep each other accountable. Accountability was particularly important because salaries were distributed equally among cooperators. Widespread dissatisfaction resulted from salary advances (which could constitute up to 70 percent of monthly income), as well as squabbles over the distribution of income and the payment of taxes. As a result, rivalries were common among the cooperators. They blamed each other, the public authorities, and the management, generating dissatisfaction. Supportive policies clearly achieved market success-scale and quality-however, the rules were not to the liking of the waste collectors.

Well, if you are leaving a space which offers you rights and a very good profit at the end of the month, it must be because the model isn't good, it doesn't offer you what you want and there is
foul play. It's not the cooperative, it's not the waste collector that makes the cooperative bad, it's the people Comlurb places there to assist in the administration… The cooperative generates a lot of money, not for the people who sell, but for the people who buy from us and then re-sell it… I see that Comlurb's intention in organizing the cooperatives is serious, is good… It regarded us as "partners in the cleaning up." But the people placed there to organize it aren't clean; they put a stain on Comlurb's reputation. The first cooperative to end because of that was the Francisco Bicalho (an important avenue at the downtown), it was degraded, its members broke everything. Then the others cooperatives (also ended)." [waste collector] The third case study involved an association of waste collectors who worked out of a warehouse provided by the government in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The association first began to receive government support and register waste collectors in 1993, and since 2003 has been administered by an ex-waste collector. This administrator was hired by the NGO responsible for looking after the association, and previously worked with a Portuguese buyer. Incidentally, this buyer owns a recycling depot and buys paper and cardboard from the city in an oligopolistic fashion. The administrator of the warehouse was responsible for maintenance, but did not interfere in the negotiations that took place. Each waste collector operated his or her own work area within the warehouse, and their respective materials: This self-determination had positive effects. Magera (2003) writes that the degree of control exercised by the waste collector over his own material is associated with the degree of manipulation that might occur at the moment of negotiating prices. For the association of waste collectors examined herein, public authorities represented a greater threat (through policies of conspiracy and commission) than they did a source of support (policy of support). Throughout the interviews conducted, the greatest recurring fear of waste collectors was to lose their collection points, especially given the growing interest in waste and recycling among public authorities and society-who now also negotiate recyclables.

Discussion
Instead of focusing on the role of the waste collector, the public sector's policies of support and press reports and campaigns have mainly emphasized recycling as an activity of economic value. The establishment of cooperatives has helped contribute to the entry of new actors in the recycling business: waiters, homeless people, domestic employees, and housecleaners, among others. The notion of bettering the work-conditions of waste collectors, as recommended by the public sector, caused workers in the second case study to feel exploited. They were not only upset at colleagues who 'faked' working, but also at managers who maintained unfair information asymmetries-no subjects interviewed knew of the end destination for the material negotiated by managers.
Given that certain skills are required in the identification and separation of material by type-an industry imperative-it is surprising that public authorities perceive waste collectors as knowing little about the industry. This is, after all, an industry and occupation that government has only recently courted.
Contributing to this perception is the evolution of the waste collector as a concept. If it were possible to trace a parallel between the policies of the public sector and the coverage of the media and academic literature, it would be possible to distinguish certain discursive and non-discursive terms, as displayed in Table 2.
From the above table it is possible to identify a few elements that constitute much of what is said (discursive practices) and done (non-discursive practices) in relation to waste collectors. But even if empirical studies were undertaken, what element would they use? Table 2 illustrates how rules conferred upon the waste collector in each case study display different effects.  Input on the support they would like to receive from the government; labor affiliation and inherited vocation (in contrast to the turnover in the first and second cases);  Participation in the collective decision-making processes of the organization. Table 3. Waste Collector Organizations (three case studies) and their Discursive Practices (source: the author).

Rules
The above table delimits, specifies, names, and establishes the rules that determine the waste collector's degree of participation in the cooperatives, in accordance with what managers view as being the purpose of their cooperatives. Regarding the disposal of goods, all were successful. With respect to whom the cooperative served-as a source of employment and income-only one case, the third, produced verifiably positive effects due to the agglomeration of groups (cooperators). Success can be attributed to this group not because of the collectivity as a whole, but rather because each cooperator had access to rules governing that organization. By contrast, other cooperatives evinced disinterest and conflicts, and their incomes never bettered what they earned beforehand.
The three case studies were some of the organizational models supported by the municipality of Rio de Janeiro city in response to this new context of waste. The first and the third case studies address the process of how "odd jobbers" and specialized firms respectively attribute value to waste. The second case addresses the consequence of the organization of waste collectors in a factory model of work (according to the municipality's plan).

Final considerations
The objective of policies to support cooperatives was to diminish the dependence of waste collectors on buyers. Having observed three case studies, only the third can be called a success. The third case came closest to meeting stipulated public policy goals of scale and negotiating directly with buyers. To what extent did the strategies or policies of support-in the sense of helping waste collectors-attend to the needs of the recyclable market? The flow of goods has improved over the years, as has the response to recycling by society and business. But the same cannot be said about the organization of waste workers.
This idea refers us back to Escobar (1995) who, in conceptualizing poverty, suggests that policies for the development of poor countries are better suited to integrating, managing, and controlling these countries and their populations than in resolving the problems associated with poverty. Waste collectors should be considered authorities on waste, so that they might assume greater participation in the process of solving their own problems. Unfortunately, this ideal was not met in most of the cases examined. Instead, waste collectors gain salience in the media and constitute the target of public policies, but only, however, because specialists in different fields associate them with issues of waste and recycling. Finally, the results suggest that policies did much more to contribute towards improving recycling systems-within a market context-than to improving the economic conditions of waste collectors.

Acknowledgment
I thank the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Getulio Vargas Foundation (EBAPE-FGV) for the financial support for this research; the Brazilian Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education -CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) for the scholarship for pursuing y doctoral degree at EBAPE-FGV; to Rita Gabriella Lobo Arruda and Leandro da Mota Damasceno for the invaluable help in part of the data collection; to all people interviewed in this research, particularly the recyclers, and Gregory Michener.