Transforming Plastics into Solidarity: Ethical Vertical Integration and Binational Recycling

在研究拉丁美洲循环经济中材料的同时转化和社会关系的十年经验的基础上，我提出的研究将比较乌拉圭和巴西的社会经济运作。在拉丁美洲的大部分地区，社会经济是不同于资本主义规范的各种所有制、管理和分配形式的名称。对两国团结回收链的研究--包括将塑料瓶转化为合成纺织品--提供了一个理想的背景，可以将伦理和劳动的人类学结合在一起，也提供了一个独特的机会，来研究同时试图使拾荒者的劳动正规化并创建一条道德供应链的尝试，从塑料瓶的处置到最终作为服装回购。通过重点关注劳动伦理，我将调查一种社会经济模式的韧性，这种模式可以在动荡时期提供希望，因为它有能力将参与经济决策与回收和循环利用宝贵资源以及建立基于团结的经济纽带结合起来。从海洋到食物链，塑料垃圾越来越多地被理解为一个全球性问题，在不同的规模和地理范围内具有当地的动态和不公平的影响。在美国，目前只有10%的塑料被回收，相比之下，纸张、金属和电子垃圾的回收数字要高得多。2018年初，中国宣布将禁止从海外进口未经分类的塑料和废纸(2017年，中国进口了全球一半以上的旧塑料、旧纸和旧纸板，约3200万吨)，这为解决西方塑料垃圾的必要性注入了一种新的紧迫感。这导致世界各地的回收工厂堆积着成捆的材料。欧盟国家受到严格的垃圾填埋法规和税收的限制，而在其他地方，过剩塑料垃圾的过度堆积与过剩的劳动力供应共存。拉丁美洲试图通过创造有尊严的‘绿色就业’来同时解决这两个问题，这对该地区以外的发展中国家和发达国家具有指导意义。巴西-乌拉圭两国PET(两国PET固结链)需要南里奥格兰德州的拾荒者合作社大量回收聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯(PET)瓶，乌拉圭的一个合作社将其转化为合成纤维，并将其运输到巴西米纳斯吉拉斯州，由纺织合作社进行加工。该计划于2014年启动，是全球首批循环经济计划之一，参与其中的每个合作伙伴企业都由其工人管理。它还具有开创性，因为它将南南社会经济发展与促进全球南方的道德消费联系起来。不同的政治和劳工谱系，不同的国家回收政策，以及不同程度的政治动荡，确保了研究这种两国合作中的差异和相似之处的基础。工人的道德和实际承诺往往被忽视，因为它是决定生产率和特定举措成败的关键因素。当工人在道德和政治上坚定地承诺时，社会经济计划会被证明是持久的吗？为什么像卡迪亚这样的工人选择在艰苦和早产的情况下留在社会废物经济中？社会经济是如何与职业轨迹、政治历史和生活抱负相联系的？巴西-乌拉圭边境两侧的工人是如何看待和实施社会经济的？密切关注工人的生活经历意味着测试循环、社会和可持续经济的基础，这些经济有潜力应对我们时代一些最大的社会和环境挑战。

Building on a decade of experience researching the simultaneous transformation of materials and social relations in recycling economies across Latin America, my proposed research will compare the workings of the 'social economy' in Uruguay and Brazil. The social economy is the name given in much of Latin America to various forms of ownership, management and distribution that differ from capitalist norms. The study of a binational solidarity recycling chain - involving the transformation of plastic bottles into synthetic textiles - provides an ideal context in which to bring together the anthropology of ethics and labour and a unique opportunity to study what is simultaneously an attempt to formalise waste-pickers' labour and create an ethical supply chain, from the disposal of plastic bottles, to their eventual repurchase as clothing. Through a focus on the ethics of labour, I will investigate the resilience of a socio-economic model that could provide hope in turbulent times, given its capacity to combine participation in economic decision-making with the recovery and recycling of valuable resources and the creation of solidarity-based economic bonds. From the oceans to the food chain, plastic waste is increasingly understood as a global problem with local dynamics and inequitable impacts at different scales and geographies. In the United States, only 10% of plastics are currently recycled, compared with much higher figures for papers, metals, and e-waste. A new sense of urgency was injected into the need to tackle plastic waste in the West by China's announcement in early 2018 that it would ban the import of unsorted plastics and scrap paper from overseas (China imported over half of the world's used plastic, paper, and cardboard in 2017, some 32m tonnes). This has led to bales of material piling up at recycling plants across the world. EU countries are limited by strict landfilling regulations and taxes, while elsewhere the overaccumulation of surplus plastic waste co-exists with a surplus labour supply. Latin American attempts to solve both these issues simultaneously through the creation of dignified 'green jobs' can be instructive for developing and developed countries beyond the region.The Brazil-Uruguay Cadeia Solidária Binacional do PET (Binational PET Solidarity Chain) entails the bulk recovery of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles by waste-picker (catador) cooperatives in Rio Grande do Sul, their transformation into synthetic fibre by a cooperative in Uruguay, and transportation to the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais to be processed by textile cooperatives. The scheme, inaugurated in 2014, is one of the first circular economy schemes globally in which every partner business involved is managed by its workers. It is also ground-breaking in that it links South-South socio-economic development with the promotion of ethical consumption in the Global South. Differing political and labour genealogies, contrasting state recycling policies, and varying degrees of political upheaval ensure the basis for a study of difference as well as similarity within this binational collaboration. The ethical and practical commitment of workers is often overlooked as a key factor in determining productivity and the success or failure of particular initiatives. Do social economy schemes prove lasting when workers are deeply committed ethically and politically? Why do workers like those in the Cadeia choose to remain in the social waste economy despite hardship and precarity? How does social economy work articulate with career trajectories, political histories, and life aspirations? How is the social economy perceived and enacted by workers on either side of the Brazil-Uruguay border? Attending closely to workers' lived experiences means testing the foundations of circular, social, and sustainable economies that have the potential to tackle some of the greatest social and environmental challenges of our time.