Condições de trabalho e saúde de uma associação de catadores de materiais recicláveis de Ceilândia/Distrito Federal

Abstract

Waste pickers are placed in a context of vulnerability. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to understand the working conditions and the health situation of waste pickers who work in an association located in the city of Ceilândia in the Federal District. This is a qualitative study that used the ethnographic approach. The densely applied techniques were semi-structured interviews and informal conversations, as well as participant observation of the workplace. The results show that the pickers experience complex social contexts regarding their working condition, which causes damage to their physical and psychological health. The reality of daily life shows that the work could be developed with more dignity, if the public power had focused attention to meet the needs of these subjects. Moreover, they are totally helpless, resisting the contexts of poverty, the daily situations of gender inequality, the stereotypes of occupation and unemployment. The life, work and health contexts of waste pickers have specific peculiarities inherent in being waste pickers in capitalist society. For this reason, to survive in the midst of the diseases and health problems naturally produced by the daily life of the occupation, added to this the totally precarious working conditions, make being scavengers resistant subjects to inequalities, especially women scavengers.