In The World: Helping Brazilians turn waste into products
Brazilian waste pickers, called catadores, are highly adept at making the most out of their nation’s waste. But a monthlong summit co-led by MIT engineers worked with them to find ways of further expanding the recycling and repurposing of waste materials, finding ways to produce food in close-packed urban favelas, or shantytowns, and ways to turn trash into floor tiles, among other projects.The event, the sixth annual MIT-spawned International Development Design Summit (IDDS), was the first to be held in Latin America, the first to be conducted entirely bilingually, the first with an urban focus, and the first to be largely organized by local people in the host country.Hosted in three separate communities around Sao Paulo, the 2012 IDDS included more than 40 participants from around the world. Some of the projects hatched by the event are ongoing, and some will be further developed during fall-semester classes at MIT and...