When Circular Economy Meets Inclusive Development. Insights from Urban Recycling and Rural Water Access in Argentina

Abstract

How is it possible to design and deploy circular economy (CE) strategies oriented to inclusive development? How can non-traditional units of production and consumption (i.e., actual productive actors such as waste picker cooperatives and peasant organizations) be integrated into these strategies? Using data collected as a result of two long-term participatory action research projects carried out with a waste picker cooperative in Buenos Aires and 65 peasant families in Chaco (both located in Argentina) the paper opens the door to a proactive critical debate in terms of how to integrate circular economy principles with the development of technological solutions (artifacts, processes and methods of organization). We show that CE holds great potential, both in terms of its contribution to the generation of new interpretive frameworks and also, in terms of nurturing local and inclusive development strategies when it is integrated with collaborative, bottom-up and innovative dynamics. Based on the idea of working with heterogeneous traditional production units (not only with profit-maximizing firms), it is possible to think of social development avenues for vulnerable populations, where the CE principles build up mechanisms capable of maximizing the transformative potential of the resources (including those understood as waste) presented in actual techno-economic matrices.

Full text

sustainability
Article
When Circular Economy Meets Inclusive
Development. Insights from Urban Recycling and
Rural Water Access in Argentina
Lucas Becerra 1, 2, * , Sebastián Carenzo 1,2 and Paula Juarez 1
1
Laboratorio Abierto de Innovaci
ó
n y Econom
í
a Circular, Instituto de Estudios sobre la Ciencia y la Tecnolog
í
a,
Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (LabIEC-IESCT-UNQ-CIC-BA), Roque Saenz Peña, 352,
City of Bernal B1876BXD, Argentina; sebastian.carenzo@unq.edu.ar (S.C.); paula.juarez@unq.edu.ar (P.J.)
2Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Godoy Cruz 2290,
City of Buenos Aires C1425FQB, Argentina
*Correspondence: lucas.becerra@unq.edu.ar; Tel.: +54-9-11-6406-6434
Received: 30 September 2020; Accepted: 18 November 2020; Published: 24 November 2020


Abstract:
How is it possible to design and deploy circular economy (CE) strategies oriented to inclusive
development? How can non-traditional units of production and consumption (i.e., actual productive
actors such as waste picker cooperatives and peasant organizations) be integrated into these strategies?
Using data collected as a result of two long-term participatory action research projects carried out with
a waste picker cooperative in Buenos Aires and 65 peasant families in Chaco (both located in Argentina)
the paper opens the door to a proactive critical debate in terms of how to integrate circular economy
principles with the development of technological solutions (artifacts, processes and methods of
organization). We show that CE holds great potential, both in terms of its contribution to the generation
of new interpretive frameworks and also, in terms of nurturing local and inclusive development
strategies when it is integrated with collaborative, bottom-up and innovative dynamics. Based on the
idea of working with heterogeneous traditional production units (not only with profit-maximizing
firms), it is possible to think of social development avenues for vulnerable populations, where the CE
principles build up mechanisms capable of maximizing the transformative potential of the resources
(including those understood as waste) presented in actual techno-economic matrices.
Keywords:
sustainable development; social innovation; community action; resource management;
waste picker cooperatives; peasant movements; circular economy; inclusive development
1. Introduction
Latin America is the world’s most unequal region despite being a continent rich in natural and
human resources [
1
]. According to specialized literature, this inequality is closely related to two
dimensions which define the dominant linear economy based on the take-make-dispose model. Firstly,
open access to key resources (land, water, minerals, etc.) is concentrated by powerful elites who impose
restrictions on the rest of the population by enacting property rights and other related normative
procedures [
2
]. Secondly, the negative impacts of the extractive and disposal activities are transversely
distributed, disseminating their externalities among territories and populations [
3
]. In both processes,
linear economy operates by managing stocks of materials, privatizing access to resources and the
profits of production, while socializing the cost of final disposal. Circular economy (CE), instead,
brings an opportunity to reshape our socio-economic development pathways towards social equity and
environmental justice goals [
4
]. Based on the management of flows rather than stocks [
5
], it prompts
sharing and collaboration instead of private appropriation, as well as the minimization of negative
Sustainability 2020,12, 9809; doi:10.3390/su12239809 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 2 of 21
externalities, and the accountability of its mitigation among producers and consumers of energy and
material flows [6].
In this regard, the promises which have arisen from CE narratives of change highlight their
potential to build a development strategy decoupling the use of virgin resources from economic growth,
contributing to prompt sustainable development dynamics and creating new job opportunities [7,8].
CE narratives propose a global scale shift in the approach towards the complex relationship
between technological change, economic growth and sustainable development [
9
,
10
]. Specifically,
they posit a reorientation of the dominant economic matrix, which is based on a linear conception of
productive processes organized around the stages of extraction-production-disposal, pointing out the
model’s negative impact on environmental and human health [11].
CE puts forward the idea of leveraging the flows of matter and energy derived both from
industrial manufacturing and final consumption, in order to reuse them as inputs in new productive
processes [
12
,
13
]. Its goal is to develop a regenerative and restorative economy, based on the design of
feedback loops from biological and technological perspectives [14].
The concept is characterized, more than defined, as an economy that is restorative and regenerative
by design, and aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value
at all times, distinguishing between technical and biological cycles. It is conceived as a continuous
positive development cycle that preserves and enhances natural capital, optimizes resource yields,
and minimizes system risks by managing finite stocks and renewable flows. It works effectively at
every scale. This economic model seeks to ultimately decouple global economic development from
finite resource consumption.
This new way of conceptualizing production and consumption has not only sparked a
theoretical-conceptual discussion [
15
–
17
], but has also given rise to a wealth of empirical case
studies, mostly focused on China [
18
,
19
], the European Union [
20
–
22
] and the United States [
23
].
These studies are generally about experiences of design and redesign of factory processes [
24
,
25
],
management of household and industrial waste [
26
,
27
] and, to a lesser degree, practices of market
consumption and management of basic natural resources (such as water and soil) in food production
systems [28–30].
Critical literature highlights particular biases and conceptual gaps which constrain the
development of the CE proposal, even in the central countries in which it was developed [
31
,
32
].
In general, this literature stresses that CE narratives deploy an overrepresentation of innovations in
the realm of industrial engineering and mass consumption patterns, neglecting the model’s social
and human dimensions [
33
]. Thus, some sensitive issues in developing countries are rarely analyzed,
such as: impacts of CE on labor dynamics [
34
], the relation between CE principles and the issues of
human development and social inequality [
35
], or the prevalence of cultural and institutional barriers
to the implementation of CE business models [36].
In line with these critical perspectives, it is possible to state that CE narratives do not land in a
vacuum. They dialogue with two complementary levels.
From a theoretical perspective, since the 1960s, Latin America has had a long tradition of intellectual
organizations and social movements fostering the design and implementation of more equal and
inclusive (and in some cases, sustainable) technologies [
37
,
38
]. Since the 2000s, the key issue of how to
develop technological solutions for social and environmental problems has acquired new relevance in
several developing countries worldwide and, of course, in Latin America. Particularly, the questions
of how to produce knowledge, boost learning and foster innovation, empower local communities and
enhance the democratization of technological decision-making have been revitalized as analytical
and policy issues. Research centers, networks of researchers and international funders have been
supporting research projects in Latin America focused on the analysis and concept generation of
inclusive innovation [
39
], responsible innovation [
40
], social innovation [
41
], social technologies [
42
],
grassroots innovation [43] and bottom of the pyramid [44].

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 3 of 21
From an empirical point of view, several social movements have been applying innovative, bottom-up
solutions in order to improve the quality of life of low-income population, promoting alternative economic
models: worker cooperatives [
45
], waste picker movements [
46
], family farming [
47
–
49
], among other
examples of synergistic articulation carried out by community organizations, private companies and
municipalities, with social inclusion and environmental sustainability goals.
Despite the diversity of conceptions and models, it is not clear how to avoid the failures of
previous experiences. For example, most of these approaches seem to face tensions between local
requirements and the need to scale up and between short-term funding and the chance to create
deeper forms of social empowerment and social change [
50
]; the conceptualization and design of
technological solutions are mainly based on the use of linear innovation models and old conceptions of
technology transfer that tend to reduce poverty and social exclusion to a technical problem [
51
–
53
];
the stabilization of a misconception based on the narrow scope analysis of social and environmental
problems (‘one solution for one problem’) which leads to top-down, pro-poor intervention strategies
and research efforts in terms of appropriate technologies [
54
,
55
]; the missed engagement of traditional
knowledge in the innovation process as a way to empower actors and as a way of finding adequate
solutions [
56
,
57
] and the implementation of predefined technological solutions that do not achieve
user engagement and do not get the expected results [58–60].
Thus, despite the promise of developing processes of inclusion and empowerment (provided by
these theoretical and empirical approaches on technology and development) and of paving the way
for a more sustainable and equal future provided by CE narratives, there are still several analytical
(and political) issues related to: how is it possible to develop technological solutions to social and
environmental problems fostering the strengths of these approaches and minimizing the unwanted
effects? How can non-traditional units of production and consumption (such as worker cooperatives,
grassroots social organizations and peasant organizations) be integrated? How could these new
development strategies based on CE principles and bottom-up, collaborative and innovative practices
be nurtured, not only through the proposal to reconvert existing processes, but also through the initial
design of techno-productive systems?
Starting from these questions, the purpose of the present paper is to analyze two cases in which
bottom-up, collaborative and innovative technological solutions, nurtured with CE strategies, generate
inclusive development dynamics. Particularly, we focused on the integration of actors who are often
overlooked in academic studies within this field: waste picker cooperatives and peasant movements.
In the first case, we present the development of a processing system for plastic materials recovered
in their post-consumer phase by members of a waste picker (‘cartoneros’) cooperative from the
Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The second case is a rural development program for isolated and
scattered communities in the province of Chaco, Argentina, based on the design, implementation and
management of water systems.
2. Theoretical and Methodological Framework
When the focus of analysis is moved from private firms to other types of organizations, it is possible
to identify new ways of doing (innovation dynamics, learning processes, organization models for the
production of goods) in new contexts: workers’ cooperatives, recyclers, social movements (such as
grassroots recyclers’ organizations), NGOs, R&D institutions (both public and private) and governing
bodies. Normally, organizations of this type are not considered in case studies where technology
has positive effects over economic dynamics [
61
]. Due to this bias, the potential contributions of
grassroots organizations in linking economic development with social and environmental justice
and equity become underexploited. Grassroots organizations provide a wide range of innovative
techno-productive and cognitive practices [
62
], which could easily be framed and fostered by
CE narratives.
Considered within the context of an analytical-explanatory model, enhancing the heterogeneity of
the organizations involved in the analysis is a key theoretical move towards a more complex system of

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 4 of 21
socio-cognitive interactions showing dynamic goods’ generation and circulation, learning, knowledge
and capabilities [63]. However, it also requires a broader definition of technology.
In this sense, we use the definition of technology elaborated by Winner [
64
], which involves and
integrates three different aspects: (i) “artifacts” (material technologies such as tools, instruments, machines,
utensils, etc.), (ii) “processes” (skills, methods, procedures, routines, etc.) and (iii) “forms of organization”
(companies, cooperatives, clubs and also non-institutional forms such as the neighborhood).
Technology understood this way allows us to think about how these three aspects connect with
one another and, by extension, to implement consistent analysis. That is, to understand how artifacts
are inscribed within processes and how they are both part of the forms of organization.
This broader definition of technology is complemented by a collaborative and participative
research methodology. The data discussed in this article emerge from two long-term participatory
action research (PAR) projects carried out with a waste picker cooperative in Buenos Aires (Cooperativa
Reciclando Sueños Lta.) and 65 family farmers in Chaco (Paraje Pampa del Zorro), both located
in Argentina. According to PAR methodology, a multi-stakeholder team (composed of researchers,
non-governmental actors, governmental institutions and production units, among others) develops
research and engagement activities in order to set common goals and methods and implement
results “in a way that will raise critical consciousness and promote change in the lives of those
involved—changes that are in the direction and control of the participating group or community” [
65
].
The PAR deployed in each case consisted of the creation of a multi-stakeholder team based
on a long-term collaborative and transformative approach oriented to the generation of practical
solutions [
66
] for social and environmental problems. In both cases, PAR strategies were grounded in
three main conceptual (and associated) key elements: (i) co-design and co-production of problems
and solutions; (ii) horizontal collaborative relations at the bottom oriented to transform the status
quo (bottom-up dynamics) and (iii) development of innovative knowledge, artifacts, processes and
organizational methods in order to deliver technological solutions.
The collaborative work with Reciclando Sueños started in 2004 and one of the main programs
designed by the team (coordinated by one of this paper’s authors) was the Inclusive Recycling
Promotion. Framed within this program, we gathered empirical insights and lessons from a circular
economy initiative carried out (and implemented between 2015 and 2018) by Reciclando Sueños and
a transnational corporation located in Argentina. We selected this particular initiative because it
shows how to create a win-win business partnership between a non-traditional actor (a waste picker
cooperative) and a transnational corporation.
The second case began in 2014 with the project Right of Access to Goods: Water for Development
(DAPED) coordinated by researchers from the Institute of Scientific and Technological Studies from
Quilmes National University (IESCT-UNQ) and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA).
The DAPED project created multi-stakeholder teams involving local communities and public
institutions for co-designed technological solutions. While it was carried out in four communities in the
province of Chaco, Argentina, we will focus on the case of Pampa del Zorro (coordinated by two of this
paper’s authors), because it combines an actual stressed resource situation (the community is located
in an arid zone, with a high concentration of rains in only three months and a very long period of dry
weather which heavily harms food production) with a systemic, bottom-up, collaborative solution.
Finally, as a PAR inner activity, we collected relevant data during the fieldwork, through in-depth
conversations with relevant actors, notes from teamwork sessions and several meetings held with
other stakeholders. The gathered data were completed with official documents related to the cases
(reports, memos and press releases).

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3. Case Study Analysis
3.1. Industrial Waste: Generation of New Processes for Inclusive Sustainable Development
3.1.1. Definition of the Socio-Environmental Problem
Based on the gathered information, it is estimated that in 2014 the generation of municipal waste
in Latin America and the Caribbean was 541,000 tons/day. Even though countries in the region show a
quantitative and qualitative improvement in the collection of generated waste (covering 93% of the
population), there are still more than 35,000 tons per day of uncollected waste, affecting more than
40 million people [67].
Although proper final disposal of solid waste has significantly improved over the past decades in
Latin America and the Caribbean, the system presents two significant issues [68]:
1.
Approximately 145,000 ton/day end up in dumpsites, are burned or are otherwise inadequately
disposed of. This is equivalent to the waste generated by 170 million people.
2.
The absence of well integrated and sound recycling public policies (from lack of waste sorting
systems for dry and wet wastes to neglecting waste pickers as socio-productive actors) results in
a low recycling rate (between 1–20%) which means that approximately 90% of municipal waste
ends up in landfills.
Particularly, in Argentina, the generation of total waste is around 45,000 tons/day, with an official
figure of collection coverage rate of 99.8% [
69
]. One half of the total waste is composed of food leftovers
and other household by-products which are non-recyclables (ranging from 45% to 55% depending on
each municipality). According to Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) data, in 2015, the average
cost of collection was USD54.02 per ton and the cost of final disposal USD17.63 per ton, making them
the most expensive services in Latin America.
In terms of recycling capacity, 21 out of the 24 provinces have mechanized separation plants
with an installed capacity to treat 17.7% of the waste generated, although most of them work below
their capacity [70].
Currently, Argentina has 200,000 waste pickers. They conduct recovery of dry recyclable materials
by collecting them from curbsides and/or dumpsites. Moreover, a small proportion of them (between
15% and 20%) are organized in terms of formal or semi-formal units of production and process
materials, adding economic value [
71
]. There is a lack of official statistics about the volume of
recyclables recovered by waste pickers. However, specific jurisdictions—such as the City of Buenos
Aires—have estimated that in 2017, waste picker cooperatives recovered up to 20% of the 2,000,000 tons
of waste generated that year [
72
], while other scholars have stated that waste pickers contribute with
over 20% of the inputs used by industries that recycle [
73
]. Unfortunately, these contributions are
poorly recognized in both social and economic terms, as the waste management systems are oriented to
its final disposition (not to its valorization) and therefore organized around private firms which provide
logistics and landfilling services to municipal governments [
74
]. In other terms, though Argentina has
a huge workforce dedicated to recovering materials from waste, it is not formally recognized by waste
management public policies.
3.1.2. Changing the Scenario, from Household Waste to Industrial Scrap: An Opportunity to Develop
Collaborative and Bottom-Up Inclusive Dynamics
Management of industrial waste is a key business activity in Argentina, both in terms of operating
costs and—more recently—of its impact on aspects related to corporate image and social accountability.
However, the dominant rationale for the organization of this activity in the industrial world stems
from a linear take-make-dispose model. According to this scheme, waste is managed exclusively in the
last stage (disposal), with a focus on the logistics of moving waste to the place of treatment and/or
final disposal.

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 6 of 21
Not all waste is managed in the same way. Certain inputs used in the manufacturing process
can generate “hazardous waste” (as defined by National Law No. 24051/91); such is the case of
those involving chemicals (e.g., hydrocarbons) and/or biological components (e.g., hospital waste),
which could potentially affect the environment and health, including that of human beings. Thus, there is
a distinction between two industrial waste flows: those deemed hazardous and those which are similar
to household waste, for example a cardboard box used for packaging; objects made of defective plastic,
cellulose and/or metal; paper used in administrative tasks and containers for drink and food consumed
at staffcanteens, among many others.
The management of household-like waste basically comprises waste treatment and transportation
to the place of final disposal, or to the place in which it is marketed as a part of the recycling industry.
In the case of waste deemed hazardous, the procedure is more complex, as it may involve its burning
(for instance, when it comes to pathological waste) or various treatments aimed at neutralizing its
active ingredients before its final disposal.
Since their emergence, linked to the 2001 social and economic crisis, waste pickers have been
making a living out of retrieving and sorting recyclables from household waste, but not from
industrial sources, which are basically managed by a couple of large private firms. However, in 2013,
the environmental authority of the Province of Buenos Aires (OPDS) started a process to reshape
the regulatory framework of waste management for those companies considered as large generators
of waste (which produce more than 1 ton/month). This process opened a window of opportunity
for the formalized waste picker cooperatives to be certified by the OPDS as sustainable destinations,
and therefore possibly able to provide professional services to the large generators, managing their
recyclable waste streams [
75
]. However, how can waste picker cooperatives be included in the
industrial scrap flows as a way to improve labor conditions and enhance waste pickers’ monetary
income? Furthermore, is it possible to develop new technologies, managed by waste pickers, oriented
to improve the recycling rate? Or, in other terms, is there room to deploy a first step towards an
inclusive CE?
We will now present the results of a case study based on the analysis of the waste management
process of a cleaning product factory from the greater Buenos Aires area (hereinafter referred to as
“company X”). In general, its waste management system can be considered an example of the circular
economy of waste (CEW). However, the analysis we put forward makes a distinction between two
stages. In the first stage, management is carried out exclusively by a private company. The second
stage involves a cooperative of urban waste pickers.
3.1.3. First Phase: A Restricted Version of Circular Economy
The production process of company X involves two main stages: the formulation stage, in which
chemical components are synthesized into the different products and the packaging stage, in which the
products are prepared to be marketed as mass consumption goods. The second stage creates a large
volume of recyclable solid waste, namely, goods discarded after adjustments in assembly lines and/or
failures in packaging machines: cardboard boxes and spools, polyester film, high-density polyethylene
and polyethylene terephthalate containers, and also textile products (tow) and even metal (iron-based)
containers, are some of the most frequently-generated materials.
These products were captured directly at the assembly lines, through three circuits which shall be
labeled 1, 2, and 3.
The first circuit (1) comprised clearly-marked sorting areas with three containers that were colored
based on the type of waste to be disposed of:
•
Black: uncontaminated paper and cardboard, specifically, clean papers, cardboard, boxes,
sheets and related products.
•
Green: household-like uncontaminated waste, specifically, paper towels, plastic straps, nylon,
film, paper spools, seals, food, plastic cups and labels.

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 7 of 21
•
Blue: materials contaminated with hydrocarbons, fats and/or oils, specifically, used contaminated
elements, such as oil filters, paint cans and contaminated materials (gloves, rags, tow, papers,
absorbent cushions).
The second circuit (2) was not specifically marked and was comprised of bins with large
transparent plastic bags, into which operators discarded exclusively containers and/or labels which left
the production process with defects. In general, said containers had been in contact with chemicals,
and were thus considered hazardous.
Finally, the third circuit (3) comprised metal racks reserved for cardboard boxes, including
defective packaging boxes, and those in which the inputs used in the process had been carried.
All recyclable materials recovered in the three circuits were managed by a private company
(hereinafter, “company Z”), which served company X. In theory, company Z worked on this waste
based on two main classifications, one which separated hazardous and non-hazardous materials, and a
second one which distinguished between recyclable and non-recyclable materials. Thus, in operational
terms, some waste from circuits 1 and 2 were managed together. More specifically, the containers from
circuit 2 contaminated with chemical products and the waste left in the blue bin of circuit 1 were treated
as hazardous waste. The materials discarded in the green and black bins of circuit 1, together with all
cardboard goods recovered in circuit 3, were managed as household-like waste, which were in turn
separated into materials which could be recycled (cellulose-based, textile, plastics) and materials for
final disposal, as in the case of food waste. In the last case, company Z could classify this waste in order
to specifically segregate recyclables which could then be marketed by the company independently.
However, this is a description of how the operation should have worked in theory. The analysis of
the actual practice, based on an observation in the assembly lines, revealed some important differences
(see Figure 1).
Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 7 of 22
The second circuit (2) was not specifically marked and was comprised of bins with large
transparent plastic bags, into which operators discarded exclusively containers and/or labels which
left the production process with defects. In general, said containers had been in contact with
chemicals, and were thus considered hazardous.
Finally, the third circuit (3) comprised metal racks reserved for cardboard boxes, including
defective packaging boxes, and those in which the inputs used in the process had been carried.
All recyclable materials recovered in the three circuits were managed by a private company
(hereinafter, “company Z”), which served company X. In theory, company Z worked on this waste
based on two main classifications, one which separated hazardous and non-hazardous materials, and
a second one which distinguished between recyclable and non-recyclable materials. Thus, in
operational terms, some waste from circuits 1 and 2 were managed together. More specifically, the
containers from circuit 2 contaminated with chemical products and the waste left in the blue bin of
circuit 1 were treated as hazardous waste. The materials discarded in the green and black bins of
circuit 1, together with all cardboard goods recovered in circuit 3, were managed as household-like
waste, which were in turn separated into materials which could be recycled (cellulose-based, textile,
plastics) and materials for final disposal, as in the case of food waste. In the last case, company Z
could classify this waste in order to specifically segregate recyclables which could then be marketed
by the company independently.
However, this is a description of how the operation should have worked in theory. The analysis
of the actual practice, based on an observation in the assembly lines, revealed some important
differences (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Restricted version of circular economy in corporate waste management. Source: own
elaboration.
As regards circuit 1, it was possible to see that the existence of a sorting infrastructure (the series
of colored bins) did not necessarily ensure that the system was accomplished. The analysis of the
contents in the bins often revealed contaminated waste (which should have been discarded in the
blue bin) in the green and black bins. In practice, this increased the volume of hazardous materials
managed by company Z, which in turn increased the cost of the service it provided to company X: in
other words, waste which should have been deemed non-hazardous was managed as hazardous, due
to failures in the sorting practices.
Moreover, it was possible to verify that the contents of the green and black bins (i.e., materials
which were in theory considered recyclable) were not subsequently sorted by company Z in order to
separate materials to be sold back into the productive circuit. As a result, said waste was compacted
together with organic waste for final disposal in landfills.
This does not mean that company Z failed to manage the materials generated by the process
which could be used in the recycling industry. Rather, it did not recover household-like materials
from circuit 1 (which theoretically included most of the materials which could subsequently be
Figure 1.
Restricted version of circular economy in corporate waste management. Source: own elaboration.
As regards circuit 1, it was possible to see that the existence of a sorting infrastructure (the series
of colored bins) did not necessarily ensure that the system was accomplished. The analysis of the
contents in the bins often revealed contaminated waste (which should have been discarded in the
blue bin) in the green and black bins. In practice, this increased the volume of hazardous materials
managed by company Z, which in turn increased the cost of the service it provided to company X:
in other words, waste which should have been deemed non-hazardous was managed as hazardous,
due to failures in the sorting practices.
Moreover, it was possible to verify that the contents of the green and black bins (i.e., materials
which were in theory considered recyclable) were not subsequently sorted by company Z in order to
separate materials to be sold back into the productive circuit. As a result, said waste was compacted
together with organic waste for final disposal in landfills.

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 8 of 21
This does not mean that company Z failed to manage the materials generated by the process
which could be used in the recycling industry. Rather, it did not recover household-like materials from
circuit 1 (which theoretically included most of the materials which could subsequently be recycled),
focusing instead on the cardboard from circuit 3 and, occasionally, plastics from circuit 2 (which in
theory included contaminated, and thus unrecyclable, materials). In fact, company Z had two full-time
employees whose job involved emptying the racks and taking the cardboard to be pressed into bundles,
which were then sold to large recycling companies. Something similar happened with some plastic
materials from circuit 2: these operators would walk along assembly lines, identifying bags with
uncontaminated materials, generally deformed or damaged containers, which did not reach the
filling stage.
Thus, company Z focused its sorting activity on those materials which were not only profitable
(cardboard and blown plastic), inasmuch as they could be sold in bulk into the market, but also required
little investment in more specific classification and organization activities, as in the case of the many
types of waste considered household-like. Thus, company Z’s operation did not focus on the materials’
recyclability (that is, the potential to reuse them in a productive circuit), but on the profitability of the
activities. In this sense, the company did not perform off-site classification activities: all management
stages took place on site and depended on the materials’ final destination. Thus, household-like waste
was compacted together with organic waste (food), to be ultimately buried in landfills. Materials
deemed hazardous were sent to private treatment plants. Lastly, only the cardboard and some plastic
from circuit 2 were sold to the recycling industry.
In sum, only a small share of the potentially-recyclable waste (between 45% and 65%) was ultimately
reused in productive circuits based on recycled inputs, as proposed by the CEW model. Company
Z operated under standard profit-maximizing rationale. That is why it contributes exclusively to
the recycling of those materials which can be sorted without any cost, as they are classified by the
assembly line operators, and then retrieved by its own employees. In contrast, sorting household-like
waste would have required not only a minimal level of infrastructure to classify and stock materials,
but also an investment in labor dedicated to separating the different materials. Instead, the dominant
rationale is one of “waste de-stocking”, using the phrasing with which company Z describes the service
it provides to company X and others. In this respect, the operation described above revolves around a
concept of production related to the management of solid waste based on the linear take-make-dispose
model, which focuses all activities on the last stage, that of final disposal.
3.1.4. Second Phase: Circular Economy in Terms of Inclusive Development
Under the program, a series of actions were implemented to reorganize the waste management
system of the plant, through the reinforcement of two key guidelines: to deepen CEW dynamics while
incorporating social inclusion goals.
The following were the program’s highlights:
1.
Inclusive recycling training workshops for plant staff (both operators and administrative employees).
2.
Co-design and implementation of clean circuits throughout the plant (production lines and
offices): based on the results of the assessment and the employees’ feedback during training,
the work-team developed a proposal to reorganize the management system through the creation
of clean circuits aimed at recovering the largest possible share of recyclable materials, to be
managed by the cooperative.
3.
Technical-professional assistance for the incorporation of the Reciclando Sueños cooperative as a
service provider.
4.
Recyclable material management migration from the private provider (which was the sole
provider) to the cooperative (the new provider).
The new system was implemented in February, 2016 (see Figure 2) and entailed a comprehensive
reformulation of the internal waste management in relation to the previous phase.

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 9 of 21
Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 22
Figure 2. Enhanced version of circular economy in corporate waste management. Source: own
elaboration.
The new waste management model had the following characteristics:
(a) More effective internal classification system for each one of the circuits.
As regards circuit 1, the categories and the physical infrastructure for the sorting areas were
modified, including colors assigned to bins, as well as new signage and informative posters. As a
result, the percentage of recovered recyclable materials now hovers around 80%–95%, compared to
a previous percentage of 45%–65%.
As regards circuit 2, actions were focused on making it visible and establishing a distinction
between contaminated and uncontaminated materials. This made it possible to minimize the volume
deemed hazardous and, thus, increase the volume of household-like waste.
Finally, in circuit 3, new signage was implemented to make it more visible and it was integrated
into the flow of recyclables to be managed by the cooperative.
(b) Reallocation of waste flows based on the provider. Through these modifications, the
management system incorporated the idea of inclusive recycling. This entailed making a distinction
among waste flows based on the following structure.
Private provider: the private provider no longer has a monopoly on the service. It remains only
in charge of the special and hazardous waste flows and, within the household-like waste flow, of
those which cannot be currently recycled (basically organic waste produced by the cafeteria).
Cooperative: the cooperative becomes a service provider in charge of all recyclable materials.
(c) Development of a traceability system for household-like recyclable materials. Unlike the
previous (private) management model, which lacks a mechanism to verify where the waste went
after leaving the plant, the model put forward by the cooperative includes a monitoring system, by
type and volume of material, for the waste that is sold to the recycling industry. At the same time,
this latter had OPDS’s backing, since the cooperative was accredited as a sustainable destination, and
therefore could issue an official receipt stating all this information. In turn, those receipts became key
documents for the environmental managers of Company X, as they were useful to establish a reliable
monitoring of its recyclability rates, and also endorse their performance according to the ISO 14,000
standards.
3.2. The Circular Economy of Water in the Context of a Collaborative Inclusive Development Strategy
3.2.1. Definition of the Socio-Environmental Problem
Access to water for consumption, sanitation and production has become a priority around the
world, but especially in Latin America and Argentina, due to the processes related to climate change,
the territorial conflicts it entails, the contamination of fresh water sources and, of course, the cross-
Figure 2.
Enhanced version of circular economy in corporate waste management. Source: own elaboration.
The new waste management model had the following characteristics:
(a) More effective internal classification system for each one of the circuits.
As regards circuit 1, the categories and the physical infrastructure for the sorting areas were
modified, including colors assigned to bins, as well as new signage and informative posters. As a
result, the percentage of recovered recyclable materials now hovers around 80%–95%, compared to a
previous percentage of 45%–65%.
As regards circuit 2, actions were focused on making it visible and establishing a distinction
between contaminated and uncontaminated materials. This made it possible to minimize the volume
deemed hazardous and, thus, increase the volume of household-like waste.
Finally, in circuit 3, new signage was implemented to make it more visible and it was integrated
into the flow of recyclables to be managed by the cooperative.
(b) Reallocation of waste flows based on the provider. Through these modifications, the management
system incorporated the idea of inclusive recycling. This entailed making a distinction among waste flows
based on the following structure.
Private provider: the private provider no longer has a monopoly on the service. It remains only
in charge of the special and hazardous waste flows and, within the household-like waste flow, of those
which cannot be currently recycled (basically organic waste produced by the cafeteria).
Cooperative: the cooperative becomes a service provider in charge of all recyclable materials.
(c) Development of a traceability system for household-like recyclable materials. Unlike the
previous (private) management model, which lacks a mechanism to verify where the waste went after
leaving the plant, the model put forward by the cooperative includes a monitoring system, by type and
volume of material, for the waste that is sold to the recycling industry. At the same time, this latter had
OPDS’s backing, since the cooperative was accredited as a sustainable destination, and therefore could
issue an official receipt stating all this information. In turn, those receipts became key documents for
the environmental managers of Company X, as they were useful to establish a reliable monitoring of
its recyclability rates, and also endorse their performance according to the ISO 14000 standards.
3.2. The Circular Economy of Water in the Context of a Collaborative Inclusive Development Strategy
3.2.1. Definition of the Socio-Environmental Problem
Access to water for consumption, sanitation and production has become a priority around
the world, but especially in Latin America and Argentina, due to the processes related to climate
change, the territorial conflicts it entails, the contamination of fresh water sources and, of course,

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 10 of 21
the cross-cutting nature of water management in regard to the quality of human life, agricultural and
industrial production, and ecosystem regeneration [76].
In Argentina, the supply of water and sanitation services is included within the sustainable
development goals (SDG6), which the national government and the different provincial jurisdictions
want to achieve through specific public policies (National Water and Sanitation Program,
Belgrano Plan, among others
). However, 22% of households currently lack access to the safe water
network, and 41% lack access to the sanitation system [77].
According to government figures, approximately 8 million inhabitants lack access to drinking
water at home. About 448,000 of the households without access to drinking water are structurally poor
and 82% of rural households lack drinking water [78].
Moreover, based on the type of access to water (water mains, wells, community outlets, cultivation
systems), we can see a correlation with the level of unmet basic needs. In this sense, for instance,
51% of the households which resort to a community outlet are structurally poor. The provinces of
Santiago del Estero, Formosa, Chaco, Salta, Tierra del Fuego, Jujuy and Misiones show the highest
shares of the population without access to this basic service [79].
Statistics on access to sanitation show an even more dramatic scenario. Currently, 40% of the
population lack access to adequate sanitation, and approximately 687,000 households have no sanitation
at all and show unmet basic needs (structural poverty) [80].
Complementarily, if we divide Argentina’s population by type of area, we find that 18% of urban
households have no access to the drinking water network at home and the share increases to 35% in
rural conglomerates and to 85% in the case of isolated rural areas [
77
]. This shows that access to and
quality of water depends on the urban or rural scenarios.
Thus, developing inclusive sustainable development strategies for isolated and scattered rural
households is an urgent priority for the Argentine public policy agenda [
78
], but also for the Latin
American region as a whole [81].
3.2.2. A Collaborative and Bottom-Up Inclusive Sustainable Development Strategy
Right of Access to Goods: Water for Development (DAPED), a project coordinated by the
IESCT-UNQ and INTA, started in 2014. The DAPED project had the support of Network of Technologies
for Social Inclusion (RedTISA), the National Ministry of Social Development and the National Council
of Social Policies and financing from the Science and Technology Ministry.
When defining the first level of shared issues, the research-intervention team from the public
institutions began to study the various water systems for scattered, relatively isolated rural areas
(lacking communication and adequate rural roads).
When analyzing available solutions, it was observed that:
•
Many of the initiatives identified (dug wells, drilled wells, community outlets, small reverse
osmosis plants) were not used due to lack of maintenance or breakdown.
•
The available technological solutions were exclusively aimed at solving the issue of access to
water for human consumption and most failed to include processes related to the use and reuse of
water for household or productive consumption. Moreover, the solutions’ design did not consider
the final disposal or greywater and blackwater.
•
The solutions entailed new related problems: transportation towards the water source, which led
to a degradation of the source and of the resource during the process; high transportation costs
associated with the use of tanker trucks; in the cases in which reverse osmosis processes were
employed to purify the water, the solutions failed to consider what was done with the hazardous
waste (arsenic), which was ultimately buried close to the water source, among other issues.
•
The communities failed to see those technologies as their own, they did not know the person
responsible for the water source and they did not have the tools for a comprehensive and
sustainable management of the resource, seeing as they had never received any assistance in order
to secure a water supply.

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 11 of 21
These cognitive issues are inherent to the linear model underlying the take-use-dispose economy.
The ways of thinking about the problem focused on aspects related to technological endowment for
the provision of water and considered no operational strategies or mechanisms (in organizational and
technical terms) after the artefactual solutions were implemented. At the same time, the technologies
were not defined based on the quantity and quality of water needed by the families, ways in which
water was transported, local production capabilities, reuse loops and allocation of the resource to
multiple complementary uses.
Based on those contributions, the team began researching the water supply regime, water use
modes and mechanisms and the resource’s daily requirements. The following is a highly-summarized
account of the findings:
•
The families traveled to a community well with 20 L tanks. Thus, each household invested up to
four hours every day to secure the resource, needed for human and animal consumption.
•
Each family farm comprised, on average, 50 hectares of native forest [
82
], which were basically
used as a source of: natural resources for producing small-scale charcoal and wooden posts,
fuel for cooking, heating and goat’s food.
•
Available water sources (community wells and frequently-used drilled wells) had high
concentration of salinity and arsenic, which represents a high risk to human health. Moreover,
most of the few sources of safe water dried up during droughts.
•
Most families raised goats and chicken for self-consumption and their production volumes were
constrained by the scarcity of water.
•
Finally, the families were only able to grow vegetables during the rainy season, which spans only
three months (November–January).
Thus, the team identified in Pampa del Zorro an opportunity to design and implement a system
for the production, supply and (re)use of water, human, biomass and food resources, based on the
main axiomatic action level of CE: an economy which is “restorative and regenerative by design and
aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value at all times” [83].
The process of co-design of a CE strategy for inclusive development began with the following definitions:
1.
Creating learning processes regarding the available technological options to supply water for
consumption, sanitation and animal and agricultural production;
2.
Carrying out practical training activities in order to learn about the technologies and assess them
in operation; and
3.
Making collective plans about the use, reuse and complementarity of water and production systems.
The types of household needs and uses required putting forward a new matrix of problem-solution
dynamics, one which focused, in principle, on various water-related issues (see Figure 3).
Under this scheme, the team and the community began devising an inclusive sustainable
development strategy for households, with the goal of creating solutions for the 65 households in the
area. In 2015, training activities were carried out in relation to cased wells, drilled wells, plate cisterns
and masonry cisterns. With the information available, each family decided how they wanted to address
the water issue at home. The construction system for the needed infrastructure chosen and agreed
upon by the families entailed a community-based model: families were divided in groups of eight,
which were to cooperate with each other to build the water systems for each household.
As this forest area is home to some species of prickly pear, a trial was carried out with two varieties:
Italian and santiagueña. The trial attempted to experiment with the possibility of generating controlled
plantations of prickly pear as a complement to water for raising goats. The harvest of the stalks during
droughts could ensure 40% of the goats’ water needs.
Through these actions, each family was able to decide on a work plan. In this sense, the chosen
water technologies were different in each case: some chose dug wells, some, drilled wells and others
opted for rainwater collection systems. When the first wells were dug and drilled, some issues

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 12 of 21
were revealed: high salinity levels and low flow rate. This made it possible to consider mixed or
complementary water systems: dug and drilled wells were to be used for the future sanitation facilities
and for production, with rainwater collection systems for consumption. The first systems were built in
2016. By 2018, 100% of the families in the area were covered by the project.
Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 12 of 22
Figure 3. Water needs. Source: own elaboration.
Under this scheme, the team and the community began devising an inclusive sustainable
development strategy for households, with the goal of creating solutions for the 65 households in the
area. In 2015, training activities were carried out in relation to cased wells, drilled wells, plate cisterns
and masonry cisterns. With the information available, each family decided how they wanted to
address the water issue at home. The construction system for the needed infrastructure chosen and
agreed upon by the families entailed a community-based model: families were divided in groups of
eight, which were to cooperate with each other to build the water systems for each household.
As this forest area is home to some species of prickly pear, a trial was carried out with two
varieties: Italian and santiagueña. The trial attempted to experiment with the possibility of generating
controlled plantations of prickly pear as a complement to water for raising goats. The harvest of the
stalks during droughts could ensure 40% of the goats’ water needs.
Through these actions, each family was able to decide on a work plan. In this sense, the chosen
water technologies were different in each case: some chose dug wells, some, drilled wells and others
opted for rainwater collection systems. When the first wells were dug and drilled, some issues were
revealed: high salinity levels and low flow rate. This made it possible to consider mixed or
complementary water systems: dug and drilled wells were to be used for the future sanitation
facilities and for production, with rainwater collection systems for consumption. The first systems
were built in 2016. By 2018, 100% of the families in the area were covered by the project.
The co-design of a sanitation system was undertaken in parallel (human waste disposal,
greywater reuse, blackwater treatment and processing into a natural fertilizer), funded by the
National Ministry of Science and Technology during 2017. This research and development (R&D)
project enabled the co-design and test, in the field, of three different toilet models: (i) a traditional
toilet with greywater ending in a cesspool, (ii) a dry-toilet and (iii) an integrated sanitation system
where toilets with latrines, showers and washbasins have a secondary mechanism to recover
greywater for orchard production. Needless to say, the third option showed higher approval. In the
same way as the water supply solutions, toilet co-design involved families both when it came to the
definition of the parameters to be used and in the construction of the facilities themselves. After the
end of the seed fund, in 2018 the municipality of Las Breñas started a rural toilet program under the
scheme proposed by the third option, which is currently ongoing.
As seen in Figure 4, the development strategy revolved around a system with four types of
water:
Water for
agricultural
production
Water for
animal
production
Water for
sanitation
Water for
consumption
Figure 3. Water needs. Source: own elaboration.
The co-design of a sanitation system was undertaken in parallel (human waste disposal, greywater
reuse, blackwater treatment and processing into a natural fertilizer), funded by the National Ministry
of Science and Technology during 2017. This research and development (R&D) project enabled the
co-design and test, in the field, of three different toilet models: (i) a traditional toilet with greywater
ending in a cesspool, (ii) a dry-toilet and (iii) an integrated sanitation system where toilets with latrines,
showers and washbasins have a secondary mechanism to recover greywater for orchard production.
Needless to say, the third option showed higher approval. In the same way as the water supply
solutions, toilet co-design involved families both when it came to the definition of the parameters to
be used and in the construction of the facilities themselves. After the end of the seed fund, in 2018
the municipality of Las Breñas started a rural toilet program under the scheme proposed by the third
option, which is currently ongoing.
As seen in Figure 4, the development strategy revolved around a system with four types of water:
Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 13 of 22
Figure 4. Circular economy for inclusive development. Source: own elaboration.
1. Water for human consumption from rainwater collected in home cisterns, which represented an
increase in the available supply of 32,000 L per year/family. With an average cost of USD1600
per water harvest system deployed with a life-cycle of 15 years, each new liter of water costs
0.003 U.S. cents (or the equivalent of 0.036 cents in Argentine pesos from 2016).
2. A second use for that water for human consumption, that is, the greywater produced by personal
hygiene activities, washing clothes and utensils, is reused to flush the toilet. Thus, families have
access to a level of sanitation (namely, toilets) which was virtually non-existent in Argentina’s
arid and semi-arid regions.
3. A third use of that water entails the employment of a bio-digester which uses treated water, in
combination with that from a well, to water orchards throughout the year. This enables
cultivation and farming beyond the rainy season.
4. Water for production, that is, well water which, combined with the prickly pear plantations, is
used by animals. This removes the competition between humans and farm animals over the
resource.
This system made it possible to increase the production of food for self-consumption, improved
families’ health and hygiene conditions and freed the families from the burden of spending four
hours every day fetching the resource. The time saved was the main improvement in terms of cost-
effectiveness metrics. In this sense, families used their time to build-up new houses (20% of the
households did so), make better use of the time assigned to economic activities (the mortality rate of
goats, one of the main productive activities, fell on average 45%) and children spent such saved time
on recreational purposes.
4. Discussion
After the empirical cases presented in the previous sections, we are now in a position to recover
their main lessons learned. These lessons can be organized in terms of the 3 key conceptual elements
of the PAR strategy:
1. From a problem and solution co-design and co-production perspective
The integration of the cooperative Reciclando Sueños as a service provider for Company X
started with the reconfiguration of the problem and not with the typical ex-ante solution. The first
task of the multi-stakeholder team was to co-design the problem mix (i.e., the interrelated problems
deployed in a situated scenario). Company X needed an action framed within the corporate social
•Wells. System of
troughs.
•Controlled production
of prickly pears.
•Rainwater
collection system.
•Mixed system:
greywater from
toilets and
drilled/dug wells.
•Reuse of water
from showers and
washbasins.
Water for
sanitation
Water for
agricultural
production
Water for
animal
production
Water for
human
consumption
Figure 4. Circular economy for inclusive development. Source: own elaboration.

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 13 of 21
1.
Water for human consumption from rainwater collected in home cisterns, which represented an
increase in the available supply of 32,000 L per year/family. With an average cost of USD1600 per
water harvest system deployed with a life-cycle of 15 years, each new liter of water costs 0.003 U.S.
cents (or the equivalent of 0.036 cents in Argentine pesos from 2016).
2.
A second use for that water for human consumption, that is, the greywater produced by personal
hygiene activities, washing clothes and utensils, is reused to flush the toilet. Thus, families have
access to a level of sanitation (namely, toilets) which was virtually non-existent in Argentina’s
arid and semi-arid regions.
3.
A third use of that water entails the employment of a bio-digester which uses treated water,
in combination with that from a well, to water orchards throughout the year. This enables cultivation
and farming beyond the rainy season.
4.
Water for production, that is, well water which, combined with the prickly pear plantations,
is used by animals. This removes the competition between humans and farm animals over
the resource.
This system made it possible to increase the production of food for self-consumption, improved
families’ health and hygiene conditions and freed the families from the burden of spending four
hours every day fetching the resource. The time saved was the main improvement in terms of
cost-effectiveness metrics. In this sense, families used their time to build-up new houses (20% of the
households did so), make better use of the time assigned to economic activities (the mortality rate of
goats, one of the main productive activities, fell on average 45%) and children spent such saved time
on recreational purposes.
4. Discussion
After the empirical cases presented in the previous sections, we are now in a position to recover
their main lessons learned. These lessons can be organized in terms of the 3 key conceptual elements
of the PAR strategy:
1. From a problem and solution co-design and co-production perspective
The integration of the cooperative Reciclando Sueños as a service provider for Company X started
with the reconfiguration of the problem and not with the typical ex-ante solution. The first task of the
multi-stakeholder team was to co-design the problem mix (i.e., the interrelated problems deployed in a
situated scenario). Company X needed an action framed within the corporate social responsibility
(CSR) activities. The cooperative Reciclando Sueños had the requirement to add new incomes but not
in terms of being a beneficiary of a CSR activity. Company Z wanted to preserve the service contract
with Company X in the presence of a potential competitor (the cooperative).
The problem’s co-design was not an easy task. The presence of the research team facilitated the
translation of the different problems in terms of a new business model for waste treatment, but also,
the material promise (to increase the recyclability rate) performed a key role in the bargaining process,
making the cooperative proposal more significant to Company X.
As a result, the whole system was changed, integrating all actors in a more efficient productive
matrix (as we presented in Figure 2).
In the DAPED project’s case, in Pampa del Zorro, a similar dynamic took place about the co-design
of problems and solutions. Although researchers from IESCT-UNQ and public officers from INTA
had had an initial problem-agenda, during fieldwork the agenda was transformed from the problem
of “access to water” (and we here refer to one kind of water) to the problem of “access, harvesting,
use and reuse of water” (where water has different material forms: rainwater, greywater, water as fuel
for bio-digester, among others).
Taking into account the multiple ways in which the different social groups within a community
understand local problems, there could not be one single solution (“one solution for all”). The elaboration

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 14 of 21
of a set of possible solutions (considering the advantages and disadvantages of each one) was a key step
for the integration of different stakeholders in the horizontal decision-making process.
In dynamic terms, the integration of new concepts (such as CE) in local development strategies
sparks processes of re-adaptation of practices, language and institutions. The actors on the ground
(management groups, neighbors, teachers, firefighters and the major, government officials) interpret and
reinterpret new techno-cognitive practices (for instance, construction techniques, water collection and
storage technologies and food production techniques) based on new ways of doing which intertwine
social change, community development and technological solutions.
2. From the standpoint of horizontal collaborative relations at the bottom, oriented to transform
status quo (bottom-up dynamics)
In the first case, the main collaborative bottom-up dynamics were established between researchers
and the cooperative Reciclando Sueños. This collaborative work was oriented towards changing the
common sense about legal partners (private companies working through contracts) and about good
circular economy narratives. According to common sense, CE can be understood simply as a business
opportunity for private sector companies looking to maximize their profit rate.
As regards waste management in particular, this entails, paradoxically, a strengthening of the
global take, make, dispose model: as the focus is on profit, the effort needed to turn waste into inputs
favors materials which require less labor and less investment in R&D, and which fetch a higher price
when sold. This means that an extensive range of plastics is ignored, and thus an opportunity is lost to
mitigate the high environmental impact caused by the saturation of landfills.
In the second case, the DAPED project was performed by a highly heterogeneous multi-stakeholder
team. However, the integration of stakeholders was not initiated all at once. As in the case of Reciclando
Sueños, the work in Pampa del Zorro started with a core team. In the former case, the core team was
composed of researchers and waste pickers, in the latter, the team put together researchers from the
IESCT-UNQ, public officers from INTA, teachers from the local public school and an initial group of
peasants. These core teams defined the project’s first set of actions in the field: to create a collective
decision-making mechanism about who—and when—would tackle problems and how to involve and
engage the whole key actors.
So, in terms of bottom-up dynamics, the main lesson is the reconfiguration of the social and
legal relations between legitimated and traditional actors (private companies, the local government)
and subordinated and non-traditional actors (waste picker cooperatives or peasant families) changing
the meaning allocated to daily activities, to international narratives (as CE), to validated metrics
(profit rate, recyclability rate, liters of harvested water) and also, of course, to the waste picker
cooperatives and peasant themselves.
From the point of view of inclusion dynamics, the incorporation of a waste picker cooperative
as the key economic agent or the deployment of an integrated system, using four types of water,
carried out by peasants entails not only better incomes (in money and species) for its members, but also
the recognition of their work as priority socio-environmental actors.
3. Development of innovative knowledge, artifacts, processes and organizational methods in
order to deliver technological solutions
The main innovative dynamics, in the first case, were the introduction of waste pickers’ knowledge
in terms of reconfiguring: the daily waste management by workers from Company X (due to training
efforts) and the improvements in the sorting system (changing the treatment of household-like
waste flow).
The changes implemented in the processes upgraded the recyclability rate, which is increasingly
relevant in the corporate sector’s accountability systems, thus proving that the cooperative could
provide a better service when it comes to this kind of industrial waste.
With regard to organizational technologies, the multi-stakeholder team itself working in the
field was the first significant innovation in Pampa del Zorro. Applying a horizontal decision-making

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 15 of 21
mechanism among heterogeneous actors was the first step that eventually led to a legal peasant
association linked with the public school, the local government (the municipality) and the INTA.
In the matter of processes, the collective constructive work (of each technological solution)
in groups of eight families had significant results in terms of learning dynamics. At the beginning
of the project, families produced and deployed one water system every five days, and four months
later families built up two household solutions every three days. In this respect, the integration of
final users in the production of solutions had a significant impact in participatory dynamics but also,
in efficiency metrics.
As regards artifacts, the innovation was made in the integration of particular technologies in
terms of water and sanitation systems, from the upgrading of roofs to enhance rainwater harvesting
in home cisterns to the integration of greywater as bio-digester fuel and the introduction of prickly
pear plantations.
In a complementary analytical level, we are now in a position to recover the main questions
addressed by this paper.
Question 1: How is it possible to develop technological solutions to social and environmental
problems, fostering the strengths of these approaches and minimizing the unwanted effects?
Empirical analysis shows that co-design activities are broader than the production of new
equipment or final goods. In practice, the generation of local development entails the design of a
comprehensive system, including artifacts, naturally, but also processes and organizational technologies.
Co-designing does not begin with finding solutions; in fact, it is initially addressed by defining
the problem-agenda. How and who defines the problems to be solved is a key aspect in the resolution
of actual inclusive and sustainable issues. Avoiding ex-ante solutions allows for the integration of a
new concept in practice: in both cases, the notion of CE is integrated in the problem-solution dynamics,
performing new ways of understanding materiality, technological options and desirable outcomes.
Moreover, the definition of problems in multi-stakeholder dynamics puts the meaning of allocation
of actions, knowledge and imaginaries into practice. In this sense, the daily activities (involving
knowledge and capabilities) of waste picker cooperatives and peasant organizations gain momentum
in terms of a new development paradigm: circular economy.
As a learning field, the initial generation of a multi-stakeholder team requires explicit and
planned out actions implemented by a core team. In the cases that have been analyzed, the core team
constituted of researchers, but the clue here is not the people involved, but the epistemic position in
terms of avoiding universal and unique problems and fostering community participation towards the
identification and resolution of their own critical situations.
Question 2: How can non-traditional units of production and consumption (such as worker
cooperatives, grassroots social organizations and peasant organizations) be integrated?
In the first case, the Reciclando Sueños worker cooperative managed to increase recyclability
levels and improve efficiency in material recovery processes, through a proposal not based solely on
profit maximization, but also on the idea that new productive processes to treat recyclable (but not
recycled) materials are the source of employment and income for actors who had always been excluded
from conceptual and policy frameworks.
In the second case (that of the peasants from Pampa del Zorro), the non-mercantile production
system—aimed at generating and supplying the resources necessary for the reproduction of human
life in decent conditions and based on criteria of efficiency and the preservation of nature—is a clear
example of how CE can go beyond a simple business-centric view.
In both cases, the key element of success was the generation of a horizontal decision-making
process where people could choose among a variety of technological options, make use of these
technologies by themselves and, throughout the construction, use and repairing process, learn how to
make incremental innovations to solve new problems.

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 16 of 21
Question 3: How could these new development strategies based on CE principles and bottom-up,
collaborative and innovative practices be nurtured, not only through the proposal to reconvert existing
processes, but also through the initial design of techno-productive systems?
In the first case, the simplest solution was to include the cooperative as a beneficiary of a CER
strategy by taking a marginal place in the production process of Company X. However, as a result
of the negotiations that were carried out, the entire waste management process of Company X was
modified, integrating the cooperative as a formal supplier. In this sense, the solution implied a systemic
change for all the actors involved.
In the case of Pampa del Zorro, the easiest option would have been to make the cisterns with hired
labor. However, that would have eliminated the dynamics of community integration, social learning
and innovation (of product and process) that produce the collaborative dynamics of problem-solution
co-design. The main learning here is that CE principles were put into action through the implementation
of systemic solutions based on the definition of heterogeneous problems.
The integration of CE principles in terms of inclusive development dynamics requires the design
of a system, not of isolated technologies.
We summarized the discussion in Table 1. We think it can be useful in the re-application of similar
initiatives oriented to integrate CE principles in terms of inclusive development (see Table 1).
Table 1. Summarized learnings from discussion. Source: own elaboration.
-Co-Design Strategies Bottom-Up Processes Innovative Dynamics
Question 1
Foster: co-design of the
problem agenda.
Avoid: ex-ante solutions.
Foster: bottom-up processes
need planned actions. A key
step is to develop proactive
teamwork.
Avoid: naïve conceptions of
self-organization. Bottom-up
processes are dynamic:
different actions are required
during each process.
Foster: enhance
participation in the research
and development activities.
Avoid: traditional metrics as
profit. Instead, use a
combination of economic,
social and environmental
metrics.
Question 2
Foster: enhance the
conceptual scope, gaining
flexibility. Co-design
involves deployment actions.
Avoid: non-reflexivity
actions. Researcher is part of
the multi-stakeholder team.
Foster: create horizontal
decision-making
mechanisms.
Avoid: oversimplification in
terms of generic problems.
Each social group has
different perceptions of the
actual problem.
Foster: integration of
non-traditional production
units in terms of production
cycles (of commodity and
non-commodity goods).
Avoid: palliative (or
pro-poor) solutions.
Question 3
Foster: system co-design
(integrating artifacts,
processes and methods of
organization). This is an
opportunity to include
CE principles.
Avoid: co-design only
artifacts.
Foster: generation of new
material facts, from
infrastructure to alternative
metrics, associated with
narratives of change (as CE).
Avoid: universal definitions
not related to actual
productive practices.
Foster: deployment of
integrated system, taking
into account that CE is
regenerative and restorative
by design.
Avoid: solutions based on
isolated artifacts.
5. Conclusions
Throughout this paper, we have analyzed how circular economy principles can be reinforced
when they are integrated in bottom-up, collaborative and innovative dynamics. Both technological
systems connected actors, actions and artifacts that proved much more heterogeneous and diverse
than what the mainstream definition of circular economy would have entailed.
CE as a concept derived from the experience in developed countries is still very strong, and very
few analyses challenge it through emerging processes from the Global South: CE, in terms of innovation,

Sustainability 2020,12, 9809 17 of 21
would appear to be restricted to the area of industrial productive processes oriented towards maximizing
a profit rate. According to that system, the place for cooperatives and grassroots movements within
the model is still marginal, but these cases show alternatives which expand on and reinforce the
implementation of CE strategies for inclusive sustainable development.
An expansion of the CE concept which diversifies the favored actors (companies, cooperatives,
social organizations, universities, local governments) and provides new rationales to organize actions
(mercantile, non-mercantile, job creation) and their insertion in inclusive development strategies
integrating the two-fold dimension of social inclusion and environmental sustainability will make it
possible to shed light on the work being done outside traditional spaces, with actors on the ground,
tangibly striving to find technological and social alternatives for the construction of possible life paths.
We have tried to show that CE holds great potential in terms of its contribution to the generation
of new interpretive frameworks associated with local and inclusive development strategies. Based on
the idea of thinking beyond the traditional production unit (the factory, in any of its legal varieties),
it is possible to think of social development avenues for vulnerable populations, where the circular
rationale builds mechanisms capable of maximizing (inasmuch as they do not follow a linear rationality)
the transformative potential of the resources (including those understood as waste) presented in actual
techno-economic matrices.
Finally, we want to stress that there is still a lot of research work (in the near future) to be done
to create an inclusive CE. Particularly, issues related to economic informality, technological change
and employment, global trade implications for actual CE activities at the bottom of the pyramid,
among others, are significant to understand how CE will soon change social and economic relations on
a global scale. In this paper, we have tried to move one step forward in the direction towards a better
comprehension of the capabilities and opportunities generated by an inclusive circular economy.
Author Contributions:
Conceptualization, L.B., S.C. and P.J.; methodology, L.B., S.C. and P.J.; formal analysis,
L.B., S.C. and P.J.; investigation, L.B., S.C. and P.J.; resources, L.B., S.C. and P.J.; writing—original draft preparation,
L.B., S.C. and P.J. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding:
This research was funded by the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, grant number 827-1304/19. And the
APC was funded by Universidad Nacional de Quilmes.
Acknowledgments:
This work was possible thanks to the sponsorship of the National University of Quilmes
(UNQ) and the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET).
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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