The Lixão do Jardim Gramacho, located in the municipality Duque de Caxias, 14 kilometers north of Rio de Janeiro in the Baixada Fluminense region, used to be Rio’s major landfill and the largest one in Latin America. It received about 70 percent of the metropolitan area’s garbage, an average of 8,000 tons daily, until it was officially closed in 2012. For almost 35 years, garbage was discarded there mostly uncontrolledly, leading to 60-meter-high trash mountains overlooking Guanabara Bay and the surrounding favelas and the constant release of greenhouse gases like methane and toxic leachate. [1][2][3][4]

The site was frequented by thousands of informal wastepickers – around 2,000 in the years before the shutdown and up to 13,000 at peak times in earlier years. [3] These so-called catadores live from what they can find in the trash and typically earn a small income from selling recyclable materials like metal, glass and plastic. [4][5][6] Thus, waste picking at dumpsites like Jardim Gramacho in a certain way also provided a form of survival and social inclusion to some of Brazil’s most marginalized groups of society. [7] Brazil currently counts between 800,000 and 1,000,000 catadores engaged in separate waste collection, doing 90 percent of the country’s recycling according to a report by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA). There is hence almost no recycling without catadores. While the majority of them work in informality, there has been an increasing building of associations and cooperatives, which sometimes have agreements with municipalities over certain services. [8] [9]

Despite being located within an environmental protection zone, the area of Jardim Gramacho started to serve as an unofficial dumping ground in 1978 – on soil that was unstable and ecologically sensitive and did not have any lining to prevent leaks of toxic substances, causing a number of environmental controversies that continue until today. Leachate generated through decomposing organic material could easily drain to the soil and has therefore been polluting the nearby waters and ecosystems of the Sarapuí river and the Guanabara Bay for more than three decades. Water became unsafe for swimming and fishing drastically hampered, affecting for example artisanal fisher communities of Chacrinha and Saracuruna in Duque de Caxias. [3][4][10] Amounts of garbage steadily increased and in 1996 authorities started monitoring the site, restricting the kinds of trash to household waste from Rio and four other municipalities (banning for example highly infectious hospital waste), and covering mountains of trash with earth. However, a formal waste treatment system remained lacking and the site continued to cause the spread of diseases such as dengue fever, respiratory illnesses and infections, to which catadores were exposed in particular, in addition to the constant risk of accidents. [4][11][12]

Moreover, work at the dump used to take place under harsh social conditions. A wastepicker leader who worked at the dump for 14 years, starting at the age of eleven, and is today director of Gramacho’s first recycling cooperative, noted: “It wasn’t so difficult living with the garbage, rather it was difficult to not become garbage” [11].  She reports that in her childhood memories the dump appears to be a big playground, while the subsequent time growing up was turbulent, with a constant feeling of injustice and failure, the fear of stigmatization, severe accidents, depression, and suicide attempts. Likewise, many catadores wanted to escape from the dump, but finding a way out was difficult and sometimes ended in drug addiction. [11]

Shutdown project

In 2012, after several delays, the Jardim Gramacho dump became officially shut down and replaced with a supposedly more modern waste treatment center in the municipality of Seropédica (RJ), where wastepickers were not allowed to enter and local population as well as environmentalists were opposed to the opening. [4][13] The dump closure came as a result of Brazil’s newly adopted National Solid Waste Policy (Lei 12.305/2010), which among others provided the replacement of dumps with sanitary landfills, the incentivization of separate waste collection, the inclusion of catadores in this process, and shared responsibility between municipalities and the private sector. For example, following a reverse logistics system, the packaging industry should support municipalities to manage discarded packaging waste and set environmental measures. [5] Environmental impact caused by uncontrolled landfills should have moreover become remedied by 2016 as part of Brazil’s Zero Waste Program. [14] In the case of Jardim Gramacho, the closure was celebrated by the local governments and depicted as a step towards sustainable development immediately before the city’s hosting of the UN Rio+20 conference and preparations for the FIFA World Cup 2014 and Olympics 2016. It came with a long list of promises such as neighborhood revitalization, indemnities and capacity building for affected wastepickers, as well as social and economic development initiatives to create employment, support the community and continue recycling activities in the region – promises that even made parts of the wastepicker movement support the closing. [4][15][16]

Funding for that should have been raised by the federal government and from social responsibility funds of the company Gás Verde. In 2007, it signed a concession contract with Comlurb, the municipal waste operator and owner of the landfill area, and, as part of the dump closure project, installed a plant on the area to capture methane gas, which is stored in the decomposing organic matter of the trash mountains. For the following 15 years, the captured gas would be sold to the nearby Petrobras refinery in order to power a large percentage of households in the region. That would reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the landfill and, at the same time, generate tradeable carbon credits via the offsetting scheme of the Clean Development Mechanism. A municipal law adopted in 2011 (Lei Municipal nº 2.430) set up a fund that promised that generated money would get back to the community and wastepickers affected by the closure as well as to environmental remediation measures that should have been set by Gás Verde. After this period, the area would be converted into a park, so the official plan. [2][4][12][14][17][18]

Socio-environmental impacts and waste crisis

Despite numerous promises, it seems that the social situation for most people in Jardim Gramacho has aggravated after the closure. Catadores criticize the lack of implementation of the announced plans and that compensation measures were not long-lasting and did not even reach everyone. While 1,709 people became officially registered as wastepickers at the point of closure and – following long negotiations and mobilization by wastepicker associations (see below) – ought to get paid a severance of R$ 13,980 (about 3,000 US dollars), many more who claimed to have worked on the dump or were impacted by the closure were not included in the register. In fact, about 15,000 people in the immediate area of the dump used to depend on the work of catadores, according to government estimates. However, the question over who was entitled to receive compensation, the allegedly wrongful inclusion of many people and leaving out of many others, and problems related to bureaucratic requirements led to confusion and tension within the community, causing protests and even riots during the days of registration. Among the protesters were also intermediary buyers of recycled materials who did not get any compensation. [14][19][20][21][22][23]

Another promise besides compensation was the creation of employment through trainings and the promotion of local recycling initiatives, which has been one of the main focal points of wastepicker mobilization before the closure. Although this led to the installing of a recycling hub for separate collection (opened in 2013 with the expectation to create jobs for 500 people) and a municipal recycling center (opened in 2016), employment is now much lower than promised: several years after the closure the two sites only employ about 70 people. [16][20] Another 18 small recycling cooperatives in Jardim Gramacho additionally employ 300 people, while as of 2019 about 4,000 people in the neighborhood remained unemployed. The average income, according to the NGO Teto, was R$ 11 (about 2.5 US dollars) per day and the poverty level has risen to 87 percent, compared to 50 percent at times before the closure. [1] Despite training courses offered to wastepickers, many of them have been struggling to find work outside the dumpsite and report about discrimination in the labor market. Particularly disadvantaged are those with lower employability due to injuries, older age or a lack of schooling (about 20 percent, as catadores often started working at the site as kids and sometimes remained illiterate). A 87-year old wastepicker who had been working at the Gramacho dump for 30 years stated: “I fear for my future, because I need to keep working” [12]. Even employed people state that compared to their times working on the dump, income has fallen drastically while living conditions have not really improved since then. [15][16][20][21]

The neighborhood’s recycling hub now suffers from undersupply of garbage due to insufficient collection, making much of the available workforce and infrastructure obsolete and inefficient.  Similarly, the later opened recycling center is regularly confronted with shortages of waste. As the recycling hub, the center is used by several cooperatives who are now forced to pay rent to the city of Duque de Caxias, instead of becoming owner of the space, as initially promised. Hence, cooperatives struggle to bear the costs and cannot pay their workers properly. Collection systems for recyclables had been completely missing in Duque de Caxias until recently and, after pressure, became slowly implemented in the rich neighborhoods while areas considered as favelas – such as Jardim Gramacho – were still left out. [24][25] Some material is also brought from Rio by the public operator Comlurb, which however only collects a very small percentage of the city’s recyclable waste – about 1.2 percent in 2017. [16] With such obstacles and a lack of long-lasting measures, also the inclusion of former wastepickers in municipal separate waste collection systems – as required by the new solid waste regulation – has been widely regarded as insufficient in case of Jardim Gramacho. Public support is largely missing and garbage remains to be brought directly to landfills without separation, while recycling activities such as awareness-raising and the collection of separated waste from registered households of Duque de Caxias are now often carried out by cooperatives themselves at the grassroots level. [25] There are also more general implementation problems regarding Brazil’s solid waste regulation and these are likely to continue as many duties of the Brazil’s Ministry of Environment were distributed to other ministries at the start of the Bolsonaro administration and recent budget cuts are likely to particularly affect social policies and thus, among others, catadores. [5]

Thus, several years after the closure, many of the promises made to the community still lack implementation. This is also the case for plans to improve living quality, to revitalize degraded neighborhoods or to build schools and improve public infrastructure – plans which have often never left the paper. Promised money never arrived. The community in Jardim Gramacho still largely lacks access to electricity, clean, running water and basic sanitation and remains affected by infectious and respiratory diseases; almost all children have skin diseases. [1][6][7]][16][21][25][26] Many projects were supposed to be realized through the neighborhood revitalization fund, which however now, according to the municipality of Duque de Caxias, lacks financial resources. [14] In 2015, the city’s mayor even apologized for the public abandonment of the community and explained the problems in implementation with the lack of public security in the area, which is – as the entire Baixada Fluminense region, under increasing control of militia and drug trafficking. The mafia now operates with the illegal dumping of waste, leading to an estimated 100 illegal dumpsites in the Rio metropolitan region. Several of them have also emerged in Jardim Gramacho since 2012, in proximity to the former dump. Waste stems to large parts from industry, shopping centers and companies. The illegal dumping of waste is now offered for about half-price than at authorized landfills located further away. It is thus lucrative both for traffickers and the private sector, but also benefits catadores and transport operators, leading to an estimated 2,000 clandestine workers just in Gramacho. Operations to stop the illegal business have happened repeatedly but seem so-far mostly ineffective, also because the area remains marginalized and outside of public control. Recent operations against illegal dumping of waste in Jardim Gramacho have led to confrontations between the military police and armed gang members. [3][6][15][16][26][27][28]

Contamination through accumulated toxic leachate has moreover not stopped, despite repeated complaints and inspections over several years after the dump closure. The pollution continues to affect the nearby Sarapuí river and mangroves around the former landfill, destroying much of the vegetation and making traditionally practiced grab fishing impossible. A formerly involved engineer assumes that the lack of monitoring and resources has led to the stop of the leachate treatment system after the dump closure, causing the uncontrolled outrunning of leachate into the surrounding waters. As it appears, engineering mistakes moreover led to a rise of leachate levels that impaired gas formation, also thus also made the commercialization of gas less profitable for the company. [14] In 2015, Gás Verde was found to irregularly dump leachate with extremely high levels of non-biodegradable substances into the river and was fined R$ 10,8 million (about 2.5 million US dollars) by the municipality. The company denied illegal disperse of leachate and claimed to be within all norms set by the state’s control authority INEA, ultimately pushing for a Conduct Adjustment Agreement in order to set mitigating measures. [6][14] However, complaints by civil society organizations and local fisher associations continued in the following years, leading to several lawsuits of the Public Ministry (MPF) against Gás Verde. That in 2018 led to a court sentence that obliged the company to adopt further measures and Comlurb to improve monitoring. In 2019, the MPF again accused Gás Verde for its non-compliance with regulations for leachate treatment and supposed frauds in the environmental monitoring, demanding compensations and the nullification of a Conduct Adjustment Agreement. It argued, among others, that local artisanal fishers and other traditional populations have not been consulted nor the drastic impact on fisheries in the Guanabara Bay considered. [10][29][30]

Besides these outlined impacts on the ecosystem and local communities, the case of Jardim Gramacho also reveals a wider pattern of shifting environmental conflict around dirty industries and processes, as the dump closure in the name of sustainable development can be directly linked to newly emerged conflicts in the area: It was planned to be replaced by a sanitary landfill in Paciência (RJ), but plans were canceled after mobilization of the local population against the project. That eventually led to its transfer of the more rural Seropédica, where the sanitary landfill also threatens an important aquifer and population was as well opposed but less capable to mobilize and resist. [13][31]

Community response

In Jardim Gramacho wastepickers look back on a longer history of community struggle and organization, both before and after the closure of the dump. Mobilization was especially led by the local Associação de Catadores do Aterro Metropolitano de Jardim Gramacho (ACAMJG, founded in 2004) and the Council of the Waste Pickers of Jardim Gramacho (representing about 1,200 catadores who participated in assemblies), and supported by Brazil’s Movimento Nacional dos Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis (MNCR). The featuring of Jardim Gramacho in the Oscar-nominated documentary ‘Waste Land’ moreover helped the community to gain some social dignity in the public image and brought international attention to their situation. The struggle for social rights intensified especially in the forefront of the dump closure when wastepickers, loosing their basic source of income, initiated demonstrations and campaigns and in a public letter asked: “What will our families eat on the day after the dump is closed?” [22] Such articulations have brought the movement into the position to successfully negotiate over indemnities, social inclusion measures, an end of taxation of the selling of recycled materials, and the promotion of the neighborhood as a hub for recycling cooperatives – even though outcomes have been mixed, as outlined above. [4][12][16][22][32][33]][34][35] Over the last years, the struggle (ex-)catadores of Jardim Gramacho for social rights and changes in waste policy became increasingly linked to broader wastepickers mobilization. The neighborhood is now seat of Rio’s Movimento Eu Sou Catador (MESC), a wastepickers initiative founded in 2016 that demands socially inclusive policies and a promotion of recycling by the State of Rio de Janeiro, including public contracting of wastepicker cooperatives, institutional changes, and the reversal of disadvantaging public policies, for example in form of a ‘polluter pays, recycler receives’ principle for the packaging industry. [32][34][36]

The ongoing crisis after the landfill closure has further led to broader mobilization of the local community, which feels abandoned and stigmatized since after the dump closure also public attention shifted away from their problems, leaving them with nothing but poorly fulfilled promises. [16] This resulted, among others, in demonstrations and street blockades against extreme poverty and the ongoing lack of security, sanitation, water and transport in the neighborhood. The newly formed platform SOS Jardim Gramacho now focuses on awareness raising, community action, and the support of grassroots recycling initiatives and cooperatives, and is also in dialogue with bigger and stronger civil society groups such as Casa Fluminense and the Grita Baixada Forum. The platform has regularly criticized the lack of action from public authorities and demanded concrete measures for revitalization and the continuation of separate waste collection. [16][25][37] At an annually organized public protest on the anniversary of the landfill closure, protesters pointed to the deteriorating living conditions after the dump closure and received support from various civil society organizations. Slogans in 2016 included: “No Makeup – we want revitalization!”, “No more rubbish!”, and “Jardim Gramacho calls for help”. [37]

Another mobilizing civil society group is the Movimento Baía Viva, which together with local fishers and other environmentalists has drawn attention to the problematic of toxic leachate affecting the Guanabara Bay and mangrove ecosystems. Baía Viva initiated actions of the MPF and in public statements estimated an annual release of one billion liters of toxic leachate from the region’s landfills and irregular dumpsites, attributing it particularly to the landfills in Jardim Gramacho and Itaóca (RJ). It claimed that leachate storage ponds would regularly overflow with rain and that obligations to install treatment stations had been ignored by the responsible operators and have not been enforced by INEA, which has issued the environmental license. Moreover, a local crab fisher alone has denounced at least six incidents of outrunning leachate from Jardim Gramacho to different public authorities, provoking new inspections. [6][10][14][30]

Apart from the now active CTR Santa Rosa in Seropédica, also other controversial landfills in Rio’s metropolitan area have been sites of community and wastepicker struggles, for example the now closed dumping grounds of Itaóca in São Gonçalo, Babi in Belford Roxo, and Bangu in Gericinó.

The methane capture plant is operated by the company Gás Verde (initially named Novo Gramacho Energia Ambiental S.A.), which is now concessionary of the landfill area, following a contract with Comlurb in 2007. The plant is connected to a refinery in Duque de Caxias, operated by Petrobras. It uses 301 collection points spread across the area to extract and capture an estimated 70 million cubic meters of methane per year, stemming from the decomposing garbage mountains. Contrary to the conventional practice of simply flaring the gas on-site, the capturing would prevent the direct release of methane to the atmosphere and at the same time make use of the biogas to supply households. The project generates carbon credits for reduced emissions worth $232 million, of which a percentage should go to catadores and the neighborhood revitalization fund (Fundo de Revitalização e Valorização do Bairro Jardim Gramacho), that should set rehabilitation measures for the area and the community. [2][4][12][14][17][18]