Encouraging street collection of waste

Street collectors of waste account for the greater part of material recovered and transformed into raw material for recycling businesses in Brazil. However, street pickers often have no legal support and live on the edges of the society. One exception is RioCoop, located in Rio de Janiero, which had 21 waste collectors in 2002, each one able to earn at least the minimum monthly wage in addition to meals, a basket of food staples and public transport. The coop also provided a warehouse for hundreds more people to sell recyclable matter.