TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessment of the current situation of informal recyclers and recycling
T2 - Case study Bogotá
AU - Bermudez, Juliette F.
AU - Montoya-Ruiz, Ana M.
AU - Saldarriaga, Juan F.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: This work was carried out with financial support from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Universidad de los Andes. A. M. Montoya-Ruiz thanks the Law School of the Universidad de Medellín. Thanks to Caitlin May of TIPPS at Universidad de los Andes for editing help with the English version of the manuscript.
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - The contribution of recyclers to the environment and the local economy is not recognized and they are not remunerated for the service they provide to the city. It is well known that informal collection contributes to the recycling of resources in a positive way, but it is also associated with several environmental, health, and social problems. In Colombia, these recyclers work informally. In 2016, Decree 596 was issued, which regulates the utilization of the public cleaning service and the transitory regime for the formalization of informal recyclers. The objective of this work is to evaluate the social and technical impact of recycling in the city of Bogotá three years after the regulations were issued. A study was carried out in order to study how recyclers have been affected by the new regulations after three years of validity as well as understand their perceptions of the evolution of recycling in the city. The study consisted of a series of surveys of recyclers from a statistical sample with 0.05 error that applied a mixed approach. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were included. This analysis was done in order to mix statistical results with deep analysis. The survey indicated that a low percentage of users (good 28%) performed good processes of separation at the source, which lowers the recovery of materials and prevents the potential use of many others. Likewise, it was evidenced that for a material to be sold or commercialized it depends significantly on the separation at the source. In addition, according to the perception of the respondents, society tends to discriminate against them, which leads to the conclusion that discrimination still exists between both the government and society. Finally, the current legislation has not been effective in its implementation and court declarations regarding recyclers as people with inherent rights have not yet been applied in Colombia.
AB - The contribution of recyclers to the environment and the local economy is not recognized and they are not remunerated for the service they provide to the city. It is well known that informal collection contributes to the recycling of resources in a positive way, but it is also associated with several environmental, health, and social problems. In Colombia, these recyclers work informally. In 2016, Decree 596 was issued, which regulates the utilization of the public cleaning service and the transitory regime for the formalization of informal recyclers. The objective of this work is to evaluate the social and technical impact of recycling in the city of Bogotá three years after the regulations were issued. A study was carried out in order to study how recyclers have been affected by the new regulations after three years of validity as well as understand their perceptions of the evolution of recycling in the city. The study consisted of a series of surveys of recyclers from a statistical sample with 0.05 error that applied a mixed approach. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were included. This analysis was done in order to mix statistical results with deep analysis. The survey indicated that a low percentage of users (good 28%) performed good processes of separation at the source, which lowers the recovery of materials and prevents the potential use of many others. Likewise, it was evidenced that for a material to be sold or commercialized it depends significantly on the separation at the source. In addition, according to the perception of the respondents, society tends to discriminate against them, which leads to the conclusion that discrimination still exists between both the government and society. Finally, the current legislation has not been effective in its implementation and court declarations regarding recyclers as people with inherent rights have not yet been applied in Colombia.
KW - Informal recyclers
KW - Labor conditions
KW - Recyclers
KW - Regulations
KW - Solid waste
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075900424&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su11226342
DO - 10.3390/su11226342
M3 - Artículo
AN - SCOPUS:85075900424
VL - 11
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
SN - 2071-1050
IS - 22
M1 - 6342
ER -