2022
The Forgotten of the Dumps
Country/area: Brazil
Organisation: Record TV
Organisation size: Big
Cover letter:
Flávia Prado has been an investigative reporter at Record TV’s Special Reports Center since the beginning of last year. He spent 10 years at SBT, eight of them in the reporting and production of “Conexão Repórter” – the channel’s weekly program. Before that, she was a reporter for the Variety section of “Grupo Estado” and also a press officer at the Public Security Secretariat of the State of São Paulo. She has a degree in Journalism from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie and works, with more emphasis, in the areas of Human Rights and Public Security.
Description of portfolio:
A survey by Repórter Record Investigação, through the crossing of data and access
to reports from the Ministry of Economy, reveals the portrait of working adults and children
in the worst dumps in the country
Brazilians produce around 1.5 million tons of garbage per week. Almost tohalf are dumped in landfills or dumps, which harm the environment but guarantee income of thousands of families.
A survey carried out by the teams of the Réporter Record Investigação, through the
crossing of data and access to reports from the Ministry of Economy, reveals the portrait of adults and children who work in the worst dumps in Brazil.
Our first destination is Eunápolis, in Bahia, a city with more than 112,000 inhabitants, where the our reporters reported the illegal disposal of hospital waste, in the midst of a health crisis. “There are syringe tubes, catheters, blood bags, all mixed with common garbage”, shows thescavenger to our reporter.
In Itabuna, in the south of the state, the word hunger is part of the vocabulary and daily life of hundreds of families. Many of them were left without income as the pandemic worsened and they went to live near the city dump. Thus, they guarantee at least a little food.”It’s the need. It’s the only way we can have food on the table”, summarizes the collector.
From Bahia to Ceará. In the city of Pacajus, with 73 thousand inhabitants, our teams found children and teenagers working at the dumping ground, one of the worst forms of work childish. In addition to exposing them to dangers and illnesses. “I’ve cut myself with glass while working,” says the 10-year-old boy.
And more: the best experts and scholars on the subject talked about what to do with thescavengers after the closing of the dumps, scheduled for August 2024.
After our registration and collection, the city of Eunápolis stopped disposing of the waste,especially the hospitals, to the city dump. From our complaints, the waste started to be sent to the landfill in Santa Cruz Cabrália, a city in the region.
