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My name is Anderson da Conceição.
I am 33 years old,
and I have worked as a collector of
recyclable materials for 17 years.
I was raised by a single mother.
She was stressed and beat me a lot.
We were 10 children, but now we are 9.
My sister died. She was murdered.
As I said, my mother
used to come home stressed.
She beat me a lot.
So I ran away from home.
I met other friends on the streets,
and so they said,
there's a place where we can go ...
we can eat, drink, sleep ... no problem.
We can even make money.
So I thought, what the heck?
I am here sleeping in the streets.
So they took me to Jardim Gramacho.
That's how I came to know Jardim Gramacho.
Back then Jardim Gramacho was different.
There weren't so many people, like today.
Today it is called a sanitary landfill, but it isn't.
It is a controlled landfill. It's a controlled dump.
We know what a sanitary landfill is,
and we know it isn't this.
Gas used to come up from the ground,
and fires would be burning all around.
I began to feel that this was dangerous for me.
I was aging.
At that time, I didn't use gloves.
Today we take precautions.
We have a better understanding.
My legs are covered in old wounds
from broken glass, from needles of syringes.
I collect recyclable materials.
I have been working for 50 years.
When I began, collectors were referred
to as derelicts, junk dealers, garbage pickers.
Today, thank God,
society's vision has changed.
We are collectors of recyclable materials.
Today we are recognized.
There exists discrimination.
Some people discriminate.
The work market for
employment is competitive.
Today there are issues regarding racial
discrimination, ethnicity and various other
acts against human beings.
That makes it difficult.
We want to dress well, have a nice house,
give our children the best.
We want to see our children eating bread
for breakfast or eating a fruit.
We want to have our dignity.
The good things about working up there
is that we are self-employed.
We don't have bosses.
Nobody is telling us what to do.
We know very well what we have to do.
We have to go in the morning,
because if we don't work, we don't earn.
This thing about the collectors
and the junk dealers, the middle men,
we are kind of enslaved in the same way.
This is why we talk about cooperatives.
We want to get out of their grip,
because they make a lot money off of us.
They are driving their big cars,
and we earn just enough to drink and eat.
For me, it would be good to work in a
cooperative with selective collection.
To be paid by the government.
I work in the garbage.
I live off the garbage.
I don´t live in the garbage.
I recycle.