TO MOST of us, old newspapers, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and aluminium cans are simply garbage. But to Elizabeth Pinheiro, a mother of five in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba in the state of Paraná, they are an escape route from poverty. Rising at 6 am daily, she loads her cart with garbage and returns home to her favela of Vila Torres to sell any recyclable material, earning around $6 per day. The efforts of people like Pinheiro help the city recycle 3200 tonnes of garbage a day, 22 per cent of its total output.
She is just one…
