Money, and all that garbage

I have just finished tearing my credit card receipts into hundreds of tiny pieces. I put the pieces in a paper bag and stirred them a bit, like raffle tickets. Then I drew out a handful and put it in the garbage. Each night, as I put out the trash, I will throw another handful in.

I observe this ritual because I know my garbage will be picked through. Not by thieves. Not by government agents, in any but the broadest sense. But by the poor, who are Buenos Aires' quasi-official recycling program.

Few sights are as unsettling to visitors to this city as the "cartoneros," who appear at dusk pulling huge cartloads loaded with plastic, metal, paper ("carton") and glass. Some are adolescent boys; others are mothers trailing young children. (Photo courtesy of Gonzaaaa on Flickr.) Their job is to sort through the city's trash and extract recyclables, which they sell for cash. The scavenging is very orderly. There are assigned routes and "stations" on each block for the picking through process.

Two years ago, according to a story that ran in La Nacion (whose statistics were translated by long-time expat blogger Ian Mount at (http://www.goodairs.com/), there were an estimated 20,000 cartoneros netting 70 million pesos annually. Approximately half of the cartoneros were registered officially with the government, which provides a bare-bones train ("El Tren Blanco") to bring them in from the exurban slums. Rubber gloves appear to be optional. But the public health issues are not.

A few days ago, I read in one of the local dailies that the city is rolling out a regulation requiring residents to separate recyclables from wet garbage. So far, this requirement applies only to hotels, certain businesses, apartment buildings taller than 19 stories, and one or two neighborhoods.

How this recycling program came to be is the kind of absurdist invention that might feather the imagination of a novelist like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What follows is an approximate narrative, cobbled together from a number of sources. Its particulars are rough, by journalism standards, but, as Chicago journalists have been heard to say, "Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story."

Before 2001, the city had entrusted recycling to private enterprise, which could offer a market, but apparently couldn't put together a work force to serve it. In late 2001-early 2002, Argentina's jerry-rigged economy collapsed. This period featured a revolving door of 5 presidents, each new leader emerging to present a new rabbit from a new hat, maneuvers that made 3-card monte look transparent by comparison. (For a more complete account, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_(1999-2002).} When all the sleights of hand had been exhausted, the Argentine peso, which had been pegged one-to-one with the dollar, was allowed to float. At one point, it lost 75% of its value. It is now trading at approximately 3 pesos to 1 dollar.

Many of the poor lost jobs no longer supported by a suddenly strapped middle class. They turned to garbage-picking. There were leaders in the slums who organized the scavengers. Middle-men emerged to process the haul. By mid-2002, the government had provided, free-of-charge, El Tren Blanco. Some people say this was in response to demands by slum leaders. Others say it was in response to outraged cries by regular commuters who protested the huge bags of trash being dragged onto their commuter trains.

Now the cartoneros have volunteer-staffed day-care for infants and toddlers, and public health care. And Buenos Aires has a recycling program.