Residents of Rocinha slum create recycling cooperative

The place in Rio's Rocinha slum that is known as Roupa Suja (“dirty laundry”) used to be where women fetched water from a stream to do their laundry in outdoor tubs, according to residents. The community has grown over the years, and along with it, garbage began to build up. But fifteen months ago, a project called De Olho no Lixo (“Watch your garbage,” in a loose translation) started to change the landscape.

Nearly 600 tons of waste have been removed from Roupa Suja and another area in Rocinha known as Lajão. The recyclables have been used into making new clothes and musical instruments as part of culture projects.

About 30 members of the program are now forming a cooperative for their waste management activities. José Antônio Trajano, 33 years old, a steel fixer who became unemployed with the construction industry crisis in Rio, now leads the initiative, and hopes it becomes an income source. “Our ambition is to grow, continue to work, and improve our community. This project has given many people an opportunity to enter the job market.”

Trajano joined the project last year, when the Environment Secretariat, the State Environmental Institute, and non-governmental organization Viva Rio Socioambiental started a collaboration in Rocinha. Environment Secretary (on leave) André Correa said the activities go well beyond the manual job of picking up litter. They seek to educate people and open up new opportunities.

“It has worked out well because the community embraced it.” Correa said the cooperative is going to open a recycling center near Zuzu Angel tunnel, and a fresh graffiti painting there announces the project.

Fashion and music

Also in connection with De Olho no Lixo, project Ecomoda (“ecofashion”) makes clothes and accessories out of donations and scrap materials found around the community.

Designer Almir França, who leads the fashion project, says their challenge is to mitigate waste by tapping into every material that comes into their hands at their workshop.

Funk Verde (Green Funk), another front of the project, makes musical instruments from scrap collected around the community, and teaches music lessons.

According to Coordinator Regina Café, the group are always working on making their instruments sounds similar to their manufactured counterparts, and tap into a wide variety of materials to achieve that.

“Buckets, barrels, paint, soda cans, beer cans, aluminum, bottle caps. We try to make something new out of anything that's littering up and causing nuisance,” she said. “I need at least 800 cans to make 10 shakers. So that's quite a lot [of recycled material]. We are  using a lot of materials we find out there in the environment.”

The project is mainly focused on local youth, but 47-year-old housewife Miriam Silveira is one of its keenest learners. Two years ago, she decided to go back to school, learned to read and write, and turned to the project for guitar lessons. “One thing at a time, I'm learning new things,” she smiled.

Translated by Mayra Borges