BETWEEN  SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENT DISASTER:
HOW DESIGN CAN BE AN INSTRUMENT FOR CHANGE

“It is incredible. Everyday I collect a whole dumpster and I ask myself: Where does this huge amount of trash come from? It is endless and it makes me sad to see good food discarded among the trash”.
Carlinhos

The collector describes his routine in São Paulo, the largest city of Brazil. He portrays the trash dumpster as a niche of income and survival strategy. He is sure that the scraps the rich discard, the growing number of very poor people will compete to gather. It is a desperate cycle that is becoming even worse with the vast majority of cell phones, electronic gadgets and all kinds of e-waste that are not properly recycled, thus bringing toxins and contamination to the landfills.

This paper seeks to analyze the phenomenon of environmental and social disaster and its connection with design in the urban areas of Brazil. I will begin considering the growth of the informal sector which provides means of survival to the urban poor, thus creating possibilities of resistance against the violence of economic exclusion.

The collectors have engaged in the development of an environmental protection economy as they clean the city of São Paulo and other cities in Brazil. I will examine the role of the collectors as agents of the reversion of discarded materials and their return to the productive cycle and explore the potential of this activity from a design perspective.

Despite their heroic efforts, the collectors are not properly recognized by the whole society and directly or indirectly they work for someone else and frequently companies profit from their work. Design could collaborate from different perspectives in transforming their image so they may be seen as a relevant asset.

Finally it seems contradictory that the weakest shoulders carry such an extraordinary environmental task. Even in the academic realm, a lot has to be learnt from  the collectors and it is urgent to re-think the ethical dimension of design research and teaching involving minor communities. How are we to deal with these questions?

References:

DAVIS, Mike. Planet of Slums. London, Verso, 2006.
SANTOS, Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos. Cidades de Plástico e de Papelão. O habitat informal do morador de rua em São Paulo, Los Angeles e Tóquio. Tese de Livre Docência apresentada à Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo. São Paulo, 2003.
HELLER, Steven e VIENNE, Véronique. Citizen Designer. New York. Allworth Press, 2003.
MANZINI, Ezio e JEGOU, François. Quotidiano sostenibile. Scenari di Vita Urbana. Milano, Edizioni Ambiente, 2004.