Zero Waste In Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Government, waste haulers, cartoneros and NGOs are working on increased recycling and composting.



Nora Goldstein



IN LATE 2005, the City Council in Buenos Aires, Argentina unanimously passed a law, “Integral Management Of Solid Urban Waste,” a Zero Waste law. The law sets goals and milestones to reduce the volume of municipal solid waste going to landfill disposal. “The first milestone is 30 percent reduction of waste to landfill by 2010,” says Cecilia Allen of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives‘‘ (GAIA) Latin America office in Buenos Aires. “That is followed by a 50 percent reduction by 2012, and a 75 percent reduction by 2017. The law bans landfilling of recyclable and compostable waste by 2020.” The baseline used in the law is the tons of solid waste disposed in 2004 (1.5 million metric tons).

Impending closure of two of the three landfills servicing the city and surrounding region helped build political support for the Zero Waste law. CEAMSE (Coordinación Ecológica Area Metropolitana Sociedad del Estado), a joint venture of the government of the Province of Buenos Aires and the government of the City of Buenos Aires, has been managing urban waste in the Greater Buenos Aires region for almost 30 years. It owns the landfills, which receive up to 5,000 metric tons/day of municipal solid waste from the city alone. Garbage collection in Buenos Aires is mostly privatized, with five of the six districts serviced by contractors to the city. Buenos Aires city government services the sixth.



Culture Of Cartoneros

Against the backdrop of “institutionalized” waste collection is an infrastructure of cartoneros, or waste pickers. The number of cartoneros grew significantly during the economic crisis that Argentina went through in 2001, but has since shrunk to an estimated 10,000 people. Entire families can be seen picking through the garbage set out at the curb. Primary materials recovered are cardboard and paper, as well as metals. Many use large canvas “sacks” mounted on wheels to hold the recovered materials. Stores owners typically keep cardboard and paper separated for the cartoneros, who have their certain territories within the various neighborhoods of the city. Many cartoneros, who live in the outskirts of the city, arrive on special trains designed to carry their carts. (One on-line blog noted that these trains were being shut down, making it more difficult for the cartoneros.)

It is estimated that the cartoneros recover about 13 percent of the garbage generated in Buenos Aires. They typically sell their materials to a broker, who in turn sells to processors of recycled feedstocks. While many cartoneros operate independently, there are about 10 cooperatives in the city of Buenos Aires. “The strategy to implement the Zero Waste law includes working with the cooperatives, having them operate the Resource Recovery Centers to be built,” explains Allen. “It also provides funds for them to acquire capital goods. The law recognized that the cartoneros were here before this policy was adopted, and these are the people who know about the waste and how to recycle it.”

The city government built the first Resource Recovery Center, purchased the machinery, and loaned the installation to the cooperative selected to operate the plant under a five-year agreement. The facility, the Bajo Flores Ecological Cooperative of Recyclers, opened on May 1st. An article in the Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency reports that there are 30 cartoneros working in the plant, processing 10 metric tons of materials a day. The goal is to expand to 90 workers, and process 120 metric tons/day. “For now, we are practicing with small quantities to learn how to classify, but we will later have to learn to handle larger volumes and how to register purchases, sales and payments,” said Francisco Monzon, president of the Bajo cooperative, in the IPS article. Monzon‘‘s cooperative was formed in