Irregular Waste Disposal in Informal Areas: the Collaborative Action as Tactic for Space Qualification

Abstract

The Rio de Janeiro metropolis is composed by formal and informal areas with some abandoned places, given its historical urban configuration. Some of these places have been receiving irregular waste disposal, such as the Capitão Carlos Street, located between an industrial area in disuse and the Favela da Maré. A group of street sweepers realized
that the continuous sweeping of these points was not enough to implement definitive urban cleanliness, thus they started an unusual intervention process. Through the “Sustainable Gardens” project, the group mobilized the community to get
together to remove the irregular waste disposal. The purpose of this article is to present the intervention carried out on the Capitão Carlos Street and discuss the importance of collaborative actions and user participation in projects that aim the qualification of the space. The collaborative intervention encouraged the citizen’s responsibility and presented as result the revitalization of the street, showing the importance of the local users’ participation in the transformation process. An experimentation method was applied that added local participation and greater connection between actors, which, based on informal actions, can be considered an alternative for urban planning of “true participation”.