Introduction to Profession Engineering: Waste Management in Buenos Aires
GENG1003: Introduction to Professional Engineering: Argentina Buenos Aires
Abstract
Argentina has had a big problem since its downfall of economy in the late 1990s. Due to the corrupted Argentinean government taking so many poor ill-judged decisions during the 1990s, the whole society was compromised and most of the middle class people were forced onto the streets. The poverty has risen exponentially since then and the people of Buenos Aires have been forced to take on minor jobs such as working as a waste picker or cartonero which barely get them enough money to survive. According to the Argentinean’s Government website today, there are about 6400 official cartoneros in Buenos Aires, out of which most of them live below the poverty line. The cartoneros usually roam around various neighbourhoods picking up materials from the garbage such as plastic, cardboards and similar materials that can by then be sold to recycling factories.
The group working alongside with the Waste for Life organization is trying to help the cartoneros by trying to make something useful out of the recyclables they collect such as the cardboard and the plastic. The Waste for life organization has a machine called a hot press that combines the plastic and the cardboard to make a composite which could be used to various items such as wallets, pen holder, etc. The Waste for life organizations works with the local union of cartoneros in Argentina called a cooperative.
The group brainstormed about the various ways in which we could help these cartoneros, and finally decided that we should make a shredder which will help these people indirectly, by making their job a little easier. A shredder would work alongside the hot press to shred the material so that it would be easier for cartoneros to make fancy items out of it. This should help the cartoneros financially and also in improving their general lifestyle.
Introduction
Many great civilizations have risen and fallen over the
Abstract
Argentina has had a big problem since its downfall of economy in the late 1990s. Due to the corrupted Argentinean government taking so many poor ill-judged decisions during the 1990s, the whole society was compromised and most of the middle class people were forced onto the streets. The poverty has risen exponentially since then and the people of Buenos Aires have been forced to take on minor jobs such as working as a waste picker or cartonero which barely get them enough money to survive. According to the Argentinean’s Government website today, there are about 6400 official cartoneros in Buenos Aires, out of which most of them live below the poverty line. The cartoneros usually roam around various neighbourhoods picking up materials from the garbage such as plastic, cardboards and similar materials that can by then be sold to recycling factories.
The group working alongside with the Waste for Life organization is trying to help the cartoneros by trying to make something useful out of the recyclables they collect such as the cardboard and the plastic. The Waste for life organization has a machine called a hot press that combines the plastic and the cardboard to make a composite which could be used to various items such as wallets, pen holder, etc. The Waste for life organizations works with the local union of cartoneros in Argentina called a cooperative.
The group brainstormed about the various ways in which we could help these cartoneros, and finally decided that we should make a shredder which will help these people indirectly, by making their job a little easier. A shredder would work alongside the hot press to shred the material so that it would be easier for cartoneros to make fancy items out of it. This should help the cartoneros financially and also in improving their general lifestyle.
Introduction
Many great civilizations have risen and fallen over the
References: Waste for Life Organisation, Retrieved 23 October, 2011, Waste for Life Organisation, from Waste for Life Blog projects page: http://wasteforlife.org/?page_id=258 Secretaria de Turismo, 2011, OHBuenosAires, Argentina, accessed October 24, 2011: http://www.ohbuenosaires.com/english/buenosairesargentina.htm Advameg Inc., 2011, Countries & their cultures, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.everyculture.com/A-Bo/Argentina.html