Rio’s Invisible Army
There is an army on the streets of Rio right now. They have no formal organisation or structure but they’re doing their best to clean up Rio. No, I’m not referring to the protest groups in the continuing anti-corruption protests in Rio. I’m not even talking about that orange army of waste collectors, the garis. I’m talking about the huge numbers of people who roam the streets of Rio collecting unwanted items that still have some value.
These guys are known as Catadores or Catadores de lixo and more often than not, you see them pulling a hand cart like this.
Catador translates to something like ‘collector’ or ‘scavenger’ and that’s a pretty fair description of what they do. Wherever there is something of value that has been discarded, you can expect to find someone busily packing it up and taking it away.
You see catadores in many places across the city. If you spend any time on the beach you will almost certainly have someone come up and ask if they can take your empty beer/soda cans. On the streets you see people pushing trolleys or pulling handcarts, often piled high with cardboard or laden with huge bags full of empty plastic bottles.
These guys were roaming the streets in Glória, looking for plastic bottles.
Like the official waste collectors, these people go about their business in a pretty professional manner and it’s clear that they’re carrying out a valuable job for the city. Sadly many people treat them like they’re invisible or worse.
This cart in São Paulo has a couple of very good points painted on the side. “I recycle – and you?” and “My car doesn’t pollute!”
Many catadores are homeless and you often see them sleeping on their carts on the side of the road. Clearly they’re not making a fortune from the items they collect, but they’re working seriously hard and doing enough to keep their heads above water. And most of the time they manage to do it with good humour.
“A catador does more than the minister for the environment”.
I don’t want to come across all ‘holier than thou’ about this, but I think it’s good to recognise that the catadores don’t have an easy life and that they’re doing something positive. If you haven’t seen it yet (I’m sure most of you have) then you should definitely check out the documentary Wasteland. It’s about Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and the catadores that he befriended a few years ago – I’ll leave you with the trailer.
Update: It seems I underestimated the potential earnings of catadores – apparently they can earn as much as R$ 1,300 per month, more than most policemen, firemen and teachers! They’re also not completely without representation – there is the Movimento Nacional dos Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis(National Movement of Collectors of Recyclable Material).
Interesting! Now I wonder if this new zero tolerance for littering will adversely affect the income of catadores. Side note, I found out early on about the “ferro velho”, a sub-group in the catadores family that specialize in metals, electronics, and such. Would be a cool documentary to see how they refurbish, and maybe even repurpose old appliances.
Yeah, good point Sei – when there are people (either working independently or directly employed by local government) who work to clean up people’s discarded items always gives people the excuse that littering is somehow ‘helping’. I can’t believe anyone sensible really buys into that logic, but as you say, if the scheme is really successful it could have an effect.
It is a great thing to see recycling having created its own subculture, when even just a small value is placed on an object most usually discard, opportunities are created for others and the environment benefits as well. I sure hope the City does not consider leaving recyclable or reusable building materials on the sidewalks for the catadores to be littering. I have seen some great items from apartments being remodeled, old doors, window frames, wood trim, all perfectly reusable with a bit of paint stripper or nail removing. I did read something recently about a plan to put separate containers for various recyclable items on the streets of Rio. I suspect the catadores would raid the bins, but who cares? So long as it is put to good use and benefits someone, all the better. If only cigarette butts had some value…..
And, the Vik Muniz video Lixo Extraordinario is one of my favorites to show visiting gringo’s. There is actually a Blu-ray version out now.
When I first got to Rio I thought all the people going through bins were destitute and looking for food. I think that does happen (probably happens everywhere actually – I remember seeing it in London from time to time), but I realise now that quite often it is actually catadores looking for cans and bottles. It’s actually really cool to see how forward thinking this group is – looking at the final link in the post, it seems the catadores are actually pushing for more modernisation in terms of separation of recyclable materials and so on.
Since moving here a month ago from California, I have noticed that Brazilians are varying in their recycling habits. Some parts of the city are very “green”, while other parts through everything out and don’t think at all about their actions on the environment.
I enjoyed reading about this army of hard workers for the city and for the environment. Love your blog and look forward to your spin on my new adopted city!
Hi Julie and a belated welcome to Rio! :D
I have seen very little of the kind of recycling we were required to do back in London: separation of plastics, glass and metals. I seem to recall hearing that in some parts of the country (UK) there were quite serious fines if you were caught mixing materials or simply throwing out recyclable items. Where I live there is no such scheme, but having seen the work of the catadores, I’m pretty confident that most of the recyclable material that I throw out is separated and re-processed.
It still drives me crazy how many people I see just throwing wrappers and other items straight onto the floor. Seems such avoidable idiocy :(
I did see people with huge bags full of plastic bottles and cans. I also saw a perfectly acceptable sofa on the sidewalk that disappeared by morning! They’re quite efficient!
Hi Stacy – they are efficient aren’t they? :) Your sofa story reminded me of one of my pics that didn’t make it into the post. I spotted this one already packed up and ready for a new home :)
Old/New Sofa
It’s also worth mentioning that they are essentially the ones responsible for Brazil having the highest rate of aluminium drinking can recycling in the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_recycling
Thanks Andrew – great link and what a great stat:
“Brazil recycles 98.2% of its aluminium can production, equivalent to 14.7 billion beverage cans per year, ranking first in the world, more than Japan’s 82.5% recovery rate. Brazil has topped the aluminium can recycling charts eight years in a row”
Yes, it’s a great stat. Too bad it stems more from poverty than eco-consciousness.
Wonderful post Tom. Really nice to see someone writing about the catadores. I am always impressed with the loads that they are carrying and they never seem to stop working as I see them all the time, no matter what time of day it is. Oh, and ‘wasteland’ is amazing. I was so happy to see you mention it.
-Saskia
Thanks Saskia – I’ve been fascinated by the catadores and catadoras since I first got to Rio. I would love to follow some around for a few days and see where they go, what their lives are like – I think it would make a really interesting documentary :)