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Unit 6: City Solutions: A Healthy Urban Future  
 Garbage that’s not Garbage: Waste Disposal The city of Curitiba, Brazil, does things differently. And, it seems, more successfully. When it was faced with a serious waste-management problem, it didn't do what other cities might have done. The conventional solution for such dilemmas is to go out and get a loan and then buy a $70 million recycling plant. Curitiba decided to get its citizens involved. It mounted a campaign in schools and neighborhoods to encourage households to separate the waste: organic waste, which can be turned into compost, on one side and non-organic, but recyclable, garbage on another. 
Then the city sent out a fleet of brightly-painted vans (left) to collect the "garbage that is not
garbage" from all the neighborhoods. Working with an organization called the Institute for Social
Integration, the city hired large numbers of previously unemployed people to separate the recyclable
materials -- paper, metal, platic and glass -- a job which the $70 million recycling plant would have
done at far greater cost, employing far fewer people.The city of Curitiba saved millions of dollars. Hundreds of unemployed people became productive, salaried workers. The business community benefitted by providing the vans that collect the recyclable materials. Everyone pitched in and everyone gained. (Adapted from: UNDP and the Urban Explosion: Crisis and Opportunity, United Nations Development Programme) SEE ALSO SHELTER, ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH, URBAN VIOLENCE AND SAFETY, AND WOMEN AND COMMUNITY-BUILDING OR RETURN TO TEXT |
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