Overview of (in)formal work: brief incursion of the precarized social class of waste pickers of recyclable

Abstract

Due to the large amount of waste that our society produces on a daily basis, it is essential that waste management strategies are established, in order to offer them a suitable destination, avoiding environmental damage. It is in this context that the importance waste pickers of recyclable material collectors are appreciated, who fulfill not only an environmental function, maintenance of urban centers and reuse of waste in the recycling process, but also a socioeconomic function, collecting and classifying the raw material for the industry, while generating income for its own subsistence. However, despite the relevance of these workers, they still do not receive due recognition from society, in addition to being subjected to precarious working conditions and being discriminated against by individuals and groups of higher social hierarchy. Faced with this antagonism between the value and devaluation of the work of recyclable material collectors, this article aims to examine the origin of this contradiction, covering, for this, notions about the mode of production, social formation, capitalism, social stratification, precariousness of the working class, consumer relations and social production with a view to producing a reading of this phenomenon. It is based on the hypothesis that, despite the relevance of their work, collectors of recyclable materials, when dealing with the excess consumption of the upper socioeconomic classes, end up being assimilated also as waste, due to the way in which they the social production of its existence occurs.