Resources on cooperatives

  1. How cooperatives can help Brazil’s waste pickers build back from COVID-19

    03 July 2020

    This year’s International Day of Cooperatives on 4 July will focus on climate action. Waste pickers’ cooperatives in Brazil are examples of how cooperatives can help combat climate change, while facing the challenges thrown up by the COVID-19 pandemic.

  2. Waste pickers’ cooperatives and social and solidarity economy organizations

    20 August 2019

    Waste pickers make significant contributions to public health, sanitation, and the environment by promoting resource circulation and reducing the amount of landfill. However, they are often not legally recognized as workers and suffer from poor working conditions and lack of social protection. This brief highlights the role of waste pickers' cooperatives and other social and solidarity economy organizations (SSEOs) in integrating and formalizing the work of waste pickers in the recycling value chain and improving their working conditions.

  3. Cooperative of Associated Work Planeta Verde: Improving living conditions of waste pickers in Colombia

    23 August 2018

    "Spotlight Interviews with Co-operators" is a series of interviews with cooperators from around the world with whom ILO officials have crossed paths during the course of their work with cooperatives. On this occasion, ILO interviewed Martha Elena Iglesias, a waste picker and the leader of Cooperative of Associated Work Planeta Verde in Colombia.