| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : APRIL 26, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| INTERNATIONAL -- SPOTLIGHT ON COLOMBIA
Bogota's Recyclers May Get a Break...But a Hangout Is under Siege (int'l edition) For 20 years, Pedro Fetiva has maneuvered his horse and cart through Bogota's chaotic traffic, picking through trash and knocking on doors to collect paper, cardboard, glass, and tin for resale. Locally called a ''recycler,'' Fetiva is one of some 10,000 informal garbage collectors in Bogota. Taking on a job city officials have ignored, recyclers collect 700 tons a day for Colombia's paper, glass, and beverage industries. Some trek as many as 25 kilometers a day, pushing wooden carts they often sleep in. Many don't make the $150 monthly minimum wage. Says Fetiva: ''Sometimes I earn just enough to feed my horse.'' But the tide may be turning for Bogota recyclers as officials struggle to manage the 5,000 tons of solid waste produced daily. By May, Bogota will hire a consultant to develop a waste management plan before its landfill reaches capacity in 2001. And households and businesses, like it or not, will probably have to begin separating garbage. As Miriam Montanez, a city official, says: ''For environmental and economic reasons, we can't continue taking that volume of trash'' to the landfill. Trade groups estimate that 20% to 30% of the waste that now ends up at the landfill could be reprocessed. Paper and glass companies depend on informal recycling, sending out trucks to pick up material from those who can't haul it in. Industrialists who reprocess recyclables estimate that over the past 10 years, if households and businesses had been forced to separate their trash, the city would have saved some $116 million in transportation costs as informal recyclers reduced the load of city dump trucks. The Manuela Villamizar Foundation, a nonprofit organization, says if Bogota capitalized on its recycling potential, the resulting business would generate $20 million a year for recyclers. The question now is how to provide jobs for recyclers within the waste management plan. ''Our fear isn't what kind of system will be imposed,'' says Rodrigo Ramirez, a former recycler who now heads the Rescatar cooperative, which provides medical and other benefits for 45 families through contracts to pick up trash at 11 companies. ''Our fear is being left out of the system.'' SORT IT OUT. That seems unlikely. The Bogota Recyclers Assn., which represents nine groups, is negotiating with the city to ensure the recycling community's place in the plan. As many as 4,500 recyclers are affiliated with trade groups and seem well-positioned to formalize their work with the city. The groups have trained members to collect, sort, and clean materials. Some recyclers have set up intermediary businesses, using their homes as collection points and reselling at a profit. Rescatar has gone even further: It's a minority partner in one of the city's trash-collection consortiums. ''We're a movement, a social force'' and ready to fight to be included in the new plan, Ramirez says. ''We recyclers most probably won't end up with the whole market. But industrialists aren't going to end up with it by themselves, either.'' Organized recyclers already have an advantage over the nonaffiliated majority. And now, one of the places where recyclers can be sure of a sale is under siege by the city. Located three blocks from Colombia's presidential palace, recycling warehouses in Calle del Cartucho have been trading material for 50 years. The Recyclers Assn. estimates that 63% of the 700 tons picked up by recyclers is sold to the Cartucho's more than 100 warehouses. But the neighborhood is also a lair for drug addicts and criminals. Home to some 5,000 families, it's the city's most dangerous area, tainting the image of honest recyclers with that of people who trade in trash to buy drugs. As part of an effort to spruce up downtown Bogota, officials plan to restore law and order to the Cartucho. It won't be easy. Demolition crews with an order to tear down 28 dilapidated homes were run out in March, and it's unclear how officials will be able to take back the area peacefully. But driving the addicts out isn't the solution, says Joaquin Caycedo, who has been proposing ways to improve the recyclers' lot for 15 years: ''If it's not done carefully, we'll end up with 20 Cartuchos all over the city.'' Instead, he adds, Bogota must hash out a plan to relocate the business--and start paying recyclers a fair wage. By Suzanne Timmons in Bogota EDITED BY HARRY MAURER _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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