Percepção ambiental e vulnerabilidade dos catadores de materiais recicláveis do lixão de Patos-PB: um estudo sobre as relações entre o pensar a realidade individual e o agir sobre a realidade social.

Abstract

The number of families that survive as trash or garbage waste pickers in dumps and landfills across the country increases every year. This is a multidisciplinary issue, involving a number of segments of society, since when subjected to sub-human life conditions, these families contribute to their own exclusion and feedback a social system that favors those who have conditions to protect themselves, nullifying those without personal and external resources to cope with the demands of urban living under unequal opportunities. Thus, the goal of the present study is to evaluate the environmental perception of recyclable materials pickers in the dump of the city of Patos -PB, and to investigate if their perception is influenced by their vulnerability, observed within their work environment. An exploratory and descriptive methodology was employed, using the participative observation method. The results obtained show that the environmental perception and vulnerability of the pickers are directly interconnected, ie, the more negative or fatalistic their perception, the more exposed becomes the picker, since he will be less likely to respond to the risks to which he is exposed. It was found that most pickers wanted to change profession in order to achieve better job security and working conditions, or even to escape the prejudice and discrimination experienced, which demonstrates that the relationship between the working effort versus low financial reward, coupled with the experienced prejudice and discrimination cause dismay, displeasure and weakens the self-esteem of the worker, hindering the valuation of his own labor activity. Therefore, it was shown that the activity of picking recyclable materials directly at the garbage dump, is very degrading for humans, leading trash pickers to have no future prospects. Therefore, this study helps the local population to acknowledge the reality experienced by pickers of recyclable materials from the landfill Patos- PB by making them reflect about the value of human life for the sake of the community and of better days for the planet.