Waste is integral to our contemporary existence. With the global attitude evolving to deal with the increasing quantities of non-decomposable consumerist waste in a more sustainable way, how can we better our understanding of our communities by looking at their actions towards the waste cycle and those who operate therein?

 

The existence of the informal waste reclaiming sector provides tangible proof of the power relations and control enforced by those in power over those who are not. It also reveals the invisible boundaries between accountability, ownership and equal opportunity between a community, their waste, and the public space.

 

“Waste picking only exists because some people are so relatively wealthy that they throw away valuable materials, and others are so poor that they support themselves by collecting and selling these items” (Samson et al., 2020).

 

Waste pickers are required to provide a service to a society that continually shuns their existence. The actions of our Suburban communities reveal how their operation in our communal spaces is oppressed. This notion opposes the purpose of public space to provide peace, opportunity, and a safe place.

 

Therefore, could we propose a system that doesn’t simply replace the informal sector but allows for this system to, naturally and sustainably, empower those who operate therein?

To explore this, this project will ask the question - how do the existence, conditions, and related displacement of the informal reclaimers of recyclable goods bring forth a personification of societal power relations?

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A core principle of this research looks at encouraging the waste reclaimer's entrepreneurial spirit, to explore the realm of informality and its empowerment through public space.  The facilitation of the formal and informal sectors of the direct community allows for the potential of a multiplicity of processes that is ecological in nature, allowing for all to participate in a social and systematic sustainable future.

 

As a solution, this project aims to understand how the built environment can attempt to introduce spaces where the process of finding place establishes an integrated society with public space as a driver of empowerment.