Waste Picking During and After the Pandemic: Changes and Challenges in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

In many cities of so-called ‘less developed’ countries (LDCs), informal waste pickers (WPs) carry out the labour of collection, classification, and recovery of recyclable material, often playing a crucial role in the implementation of modern policies of urban waste management. In general, as well as many other informal workers, during the COVID-19 pandemic WPs faced severe drops in access to recyclable waste, prices for reclaimed waste, and access to buyers. The main aim of this chapter is to highlight and analyze some of the effects of COVID-19 on working conditions, practices, organizations, perceptions and meanings of work that arose from the daily working life of WPs operating in some urban realities of the Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Drawing on interviews, observations and documents’ analysis, the fieldwork illuminates that the pandemic re-organised the waste collection and classification system in many urban areas of the Rio Grande do Sul, but with some differences. These differences seemed to produce relevant consequences in terms of collective claims of WPs, construction of identity, relationships with local authorities, and recognition of the other informal and formal economic actors who participate in urban waste management.