In My Backyard? Discussing the NIMBY Effect, Social Acceptability, and Residents’ Involvement in Community-Based Solid Waste Management

Abstract

The present study explored an experience in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in which a community-based solid waste management experience was created by joining a waste pickers’ cooperative; a collective of urban agroecology activists; an alliance of social actors, including a university, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and membership-based organizations (MBOs); and a local community in a collaborative experience of zero waste that integrates waste pickers. More specifically, we focused on the Zero Waste Nucleus, which is an “intentional place” built in the territory that supports this experience and, as a facility, can face the “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) effects in the local production. The core of the analysis and discussion was how the process of developing the social acceptability of this space with the neighborhood took place, and how this space contributes to enhancing residents’ involvement in the project. We showed that daily care with negative externalities, the emergence of positive externalities, and the development of immaterial resources within the community, such as trust, are main factors for good social acceptability. Our conclusion presents the operational concept of Place for Assisted Voluntary Delivery (LEVA, in Portuguese) as a synthesis of design elements that can help build places to support community-based waste management systems, and reveals the limits of this study and the opportunities for future research in this field.

1. Introduction

The environmental crisis demands complex alternatives that integrate varied technical, social, organizational, and institutional solutions. In this context, a number of studies have focused on analyzing and revealing the potential of decentralized and community-based solid waste management experiences to act as more adherent and efficient alternatives to addressing waste problems in the infra-national territories [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to an old, but very relevant problem: the social acceptability of decentralized urban facilities that support these community solutions. Would these facilities face the residents’ “resistance” and the infamous “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) effect, like other kinds of waste management facilities?

The NIMBY effect or syndrome is a phenomenon that is commonplace in discussions on the location of urban facilities. Indeed, this effect has long been the most widely used explanation, both in public and academic debates, regarding the complex factors involved in the resistance of some undesirable uses for land and urban space [8]. It is considered to be the reaction of people inserted in a space where they find themselves dealing with the negative externality of a facility’s implementation and operation [9].

Why is this dilemma important to those who seek community-based waste management? If, on the one hand, many researchers argue that the decentralization of waste management is a way to obtain better production results and effects on the territories, on the other hand, with community-based waste management, one can expect to see a spread of facilities throughout the entire town or municipality. Consequently, would decentralizing a waste management system not imply the multiplication and aggravation of these phenomena?

It is well known that one of the assumptions of community-based waste management systems is to place the treatment process closer to the generating source, normally facilitated by the installation of urban facilities within the territories. Some might therefore claim that this approach would merely contribute to the expansion of the number of facilities and, consequently, the occurrence of the NIMBY phenomenon and the difficulties related to the scale of its governance. Our understanding, on the other hand, is that NIMBY is not a “natural” effect of these processes, however common it may be. Hence, to support this claim, it would be important to understand the role of citizens and communities in this process.

Regarding the investment in more sustainable production systems, such as the expansion of a wind farm in a region, Bigerna and Polinori demonstrate that there is a dual role assumed by citizens: (I) that of beneficiaries of the system and (II) that of stakeholders in the local production process [10]. When researching the main determinants associated with citizen engagement in both roles, the tendency is that people would be willing to pay more to facilitate the adoption of renewable energies. However, the environmental externalities of its implementation tend to be the cause of strong local opposition. As stated by the authors, “individuals demonstrate different behavior according to the role they take on. As stakeholders, on the supply side, they are more affected by local negative externalities, while as consumers, on the demand side, they are more affected by global positive externalities due to RE” [10] (p. 11910).

If the decentralization of waste management can be, as the studies point out, a path to more satisfactory global results, it is important to consider the negative effects of its implementation and operation upon the territories. Since one of the main risks of this strategy is its acceptability in the specific locations, the proposal would then be to understand this risk, as well as its governance. The local community thus plays a central role in the feasibility of decentralizing waste management systems.

From a demand point of view, many people see recycling positively and may well be willing to contribute to its expansion. In Brazil, for example, 98% of the population consider recycling important for the future of the planet [11]. However, unlike the case of Wind Energy [10], in which past local experiences with wind farms do not affect the acceptance of new installations, in the case of waste management facilities, what happens is quite the opposite. The NIMBY effect related to waste is generally associated with previous traumatic experiences experienced by a community regarding the location of structures intended for waste management or even places of clandestine disposal [12].

In part, this may be due to the choice of technology. In the case of garbage incineration systems, for example, where local externalities are the target of great opposition, their global externalities also produce a negative view. In this sense, the NIMBY effect is considered to be a given, with several studies that are interested in its mitigation, compensation, or governance [13,14,15]. However, even though recycling also has negative local externalities, as demonstrated in previous studies, societal support for its expansion is commonplace. Our hypothesis would thus be that the active support of citizens, in the co-production of services and in their funding, could be better instrumented with an expansion of the governance of externalities in the process of the decentralization of recycling systems. If studies demonstrate the systemic efficiency of this strategy, expanding service and global positive externalities, showing concern about its local impacts can contribute to its effectiveness.

In the present work, we analyzed possible NIMBY or YIMBY (“yes in my backyard”) effects of socioenvironmental projects in which the community itself is a protagonist. More specifically, a Brazilian experience of community-based management of solid waste was analyzed in depth in order to provide a basis for discussions on social acceptability and the governance of negative externalities.

In this experience, an urban facility location was conceived as an ‘intentional place’ [16] in a territory, that is, a place built by an ‘intentional community’, which is a group of individuals who, by their own choice, decided to transform and use a physical space, act in it together, and endow it with common meaning. What we aim to demonstrate is that this dynamic enables the development of two types of involvement of the residents [16]: (1) an “active involvement”, meaning a more active participation in the development of the project and the co-production of the service and (2) a “collaborative involvement”, i.e., an involvement that goes beyond the co-production of the service in a solely operational fashion, also contributing, in collaboration with other actors, to its governance.

In summary, the article seeks, based on the analyzed experience: (1) to discuss the question of the social acceptability of facilities that support community management of urban solid waste; (2) to analyze the contribution of these intentional places in order to activate the different forms of involvement of residents; and (3) to verify the results and effects that more active and collaborative involvement [16] brings to community waste management, both globally and locally.

To achieve this goal, Section 2 presents a background, including some of the academic literature on NIMBY effects, which tend to naturalize the phenomena as something given and inescapable. The importance of understanding NIMBY is then justified by its particular dynamics, and ‘trust’ is proposed as an analytical key to achieve this goal. The ‘Dynamics of Trust Production Model’ [17] is subsequently presented as a supporting theory. Section 3 presents a brief contextualization of the analyzed experience. The option to present this context before the Material and Methods section is justified by our methodological choice, that is, working in an action-research perspective, intervening directly, as actors, in the reality being investigated. In this sense, the empirical context helps to contextualize not only the study itself, but also our research rationale.

Section 4 presents the methodological framework used in the collection of data and qualitative information, as well as in the analysis of this research material. Section 5 shows the research findings, with a description of illustrative cases for the discussion on social acceptability and involvement. Section 6, based on the empirical research, illustrates the reflections on “resistance” to waste management support facilities in the territories. We also bring a closing discussion focused on the operational concept of “Place for Assisted Voluntary Delivery” (LEVA, in Portuguese) as a synthesis of design elements that can help build places to support community-based waste management systems. Section 7 presents our conclusions and identifies the limits of our study, as well as opportunities for future research on the topics covered in this article.

2. Background: Academic Literature and Supporting Theory

2.1. NIMBY Effect in Academic Literature

The NIMBY effect on the territories has become the most widely used explanation, in both public and academic debates, concerning the complex factors involved in the resistance to some undesirable uses for land and urban space [8]. Some popular interpretations are very commonly used, relating the effect to “selfishness” or “community parochialism” to being responsible for unsuccessful attempts to solve social and environmental problems. Others consider NIMBY as a community response to the political-administrative practices of the State, which seek to minimize costs for Capital in facilities’ implementation and operation and concentrate these costs (which became “externalities”) in the communities [18].

This conclusion is derived from the examination of the “locational strategy” as the strategy predominantly adopted by the State to define the location of facilities with a high potential to produce negative externalities. The adoption of this specific strategy, to the detriment of others, “reflects structural limitations imposed on the State by its relationship with capital” [18] (p. 665). Negative externalities are thus pushed as close as possible to the territories and as far as possible from the economic model of large companies, which opt for the “line of least resistance” for capital appreciation [19].

To investigate this dilemma and propose solutions to overcome it, or at least to minimize its effects, recent works have used different methodologies. Some bet on mathematical modeling, in terms of simulation and optimization, in order to analyze governance processes, externalities, inclusion of compensation, impacts on land value, and even individual and collective behavior in the affected populations. They thus adopt the perspective of addressing the NIMBY effect from a logic of harm reduction and the stabilization of social conflicts [13,14,20,21].

Other works focus attention on the concepts of “willing to pay” and “willing to accept”, trying to measure specific aspects, such as: (1) people’s behavior in the face of the threat of installing unwanted installations close to their homes [15] and (2) the transformation of their perceptions in relation to the benefits of public spaces or cultivated land when facilities are placed in their vicinity [22]. Still along this line, there are works dedicated to mapping and analyzing the determining factors for the rejection or acceptance of installations, associated with problems of governance and the technology itself, which may have, to a greater or lesser degree, global and local acceptability, depending on the social perception [10,23].

From a sociological point of view, NIMBY can also be understood as the reflection of a collective will for greater autonomy and participation in decision-making in a given territory [24,25], since this is often related to negative externalities produced from top-down decisions. This growing desire for public participation in decision-making processes poses difficulties in adapting to the traditional closed models of public decision-makers [20].

With waste, the NIMBY effect is always evoked and placed as an obstacle in the implementation, for example, of a decentralized and territorialized waste management strategy, which brings the processing of these materials closer to the place where they are generated. Nevertheless, in the community-based waste management literature, the NIMBY effect is rarely addressed. Some studies mention the emergence of conflicts within the community [26,27], but without mentioning NIMBY, and the characterization of these conflicts as something inherent to these kinds of projects is seen as a “necessary evil” in the midst of waste activity. In this sense, they end up naturalizing the phenomenon.

By contrast, thinking of NIMBY as merely an externality does not help to solve the problem. Instead of naturalizing or trivializing the phenomenon, we thus propose a different approach, placing NIMBY itself, or the attempt to achieve a broader social acceptance of urban facilities, as the research object. The goal is to understand NIMBY through its particular dynamics. For that, we propose ‘trust’ as an analytical key. The next section will justify this hypothesis and present the Dynamics of Trust Production Model [17] as a supporting theory.

2.2. Dynamics of Trust Production Model

In general, we can understand ‘trust’ as a process involving at least two actors (or actants), in which expectations are created about the other’s performance, and the trust itself is created, or not, and then developed or degraded according to the results of this performance in practice. Hence, the NIMBY effect can be viewed through the lens of the dynamics of trust production, as it is the result of a process in which these dynamics fail.

In this sense, the Dynamics of Trust Production Model [17] was used to base the discussion on the NIMBY effect and the social acceptability of urban facilities in community-based solid waste management. Figure 1 shows a scheme that represents this model. Its elements are identified in the scheme with letters of the alphabet in parentheses, from (A) to (I). Below, only the elements that have been used for the purpose of this article are explained.

The elements of the dynamics of trust production are [17]:

• The level of trust (A), which is built by the actor who must trust based on the answer to the question: “To what extent can I rely on another actor to believe that my interests will be preserved in the situation?”. This depends on the actor’s construction of a representation about the potential risks associated with the situation and on a judgment about the other actor regarding his intentions and abilities to minimize this risk. Building a level of trust relies on the predisposition to trust and the direct resources of trust;
• The predisposition to trust (B) occurs when you do not have enough elements and information to formulate a judgment about the target of trust; however, at the same time, there are points of affinity that enable an immediate identification with the other, such as having the same education, profession, or political, ideological, and methodological affinities, among others. The predisposition to trust is also based on previous experiences with trust, e.g., disappointment undermines trust and reduces the willingness/predisposition of the actor to trust again;
• The direct resources of trust (C) are characteristics of the “target” to which the trust is intended, such as competence, reliability, sincerity, care for the other, and the degree of identification with the other, which may or may not be known a priori. These are usually present in the relationship between actors who know each other, but these can also be built between actors who do not know each other, so long as the contribution of intermediary trust resources are also present;
• The intermediary resources of trust (D) are those that can be mobilized when the actors involved in the relationship do not know each other. They can be, among others: (1) institutional records of acquired skills, such as diplomas, awards, etc.; (2) recommendations, which presuppose the existence of a third party’s trust in the person or entity that is recommended (borrowed trust); and (3) the position or function exercised by the target of the trust. Intermediate resources depend directly on the cultural and organizational context, and feed the direct resources of trust.
• Engagement expectations negotiated explicitly or implicitly (E) concern the expectations that the actors build on the weaknesses they anticipate in each other, and on the mutual commitments obtained, which can reduce the perceived risks related to the dependency relationship;
• The observable performance—Practice (H) is always the landmark or predominant moment in the dynamics of trust production. This performance is not a universal data, since it depends on the observation and judgment of the actors’ actions in the situation itself. The moment of judging the performance subliminally involves answering the question “Was I right to trust (the target)?” The answer will depend on the coherence or pertinence between what could possibly be observed in relation to the action of the other (perceived performance) and the expectations of engagement that had been built. This will also provide feedback to the entire dynamic of producing trust;
• Finally, the search for meaning (I) may appear in cases where engagement expectations are not met. The disappointment resulting from these expectations does not necessarily lead immediately to a breakdown in trust. Preceding that, people can try to understand why the performance is unsatisfactory. The process of searching for meaning can lead to two possible results: the understanding of the constraints that led to insufficient performance, thereby reinforcing trust, or the understanding that expectations were not met due to a failure in the very construction of this expectation, thereby weakening trust.

3. Empirical Context: Brief Contextualization of Zero Waste Santa Tereza and Zero Waste Nucleus (ZWN)

The expansion of selective collection services in Brazilian cities is a challenge on which different strategies focus. On the one hand, there is public investment in the mechanization of urban collection and sorting systems as a way of expanding their capacity to reinsert material into industrial recycling chains. On the other hand, community initiatives are emerging, which seek to give local destinations to other types of waste, like organic waste. In both cases, the location of facilities is a central issue. The NIMBY effect related to waste is generally associated with previous traumatic experiences lived through by a community, regarding the location of structures intended for waste management or even places of clandestine disposal [12].

One example is the resistance often encountered in installing and operating recycling voluntary drop-off sites or points (LEVs or PEVs in Portuguese) as public storage facilities for point-to-point collection in cities. Despite the good intention of optimizing the selective collection routes, this option presents, at least in Brazil, several chronic operational problems, such as the accumulation of materials outside the waste containers, vandalism, deterioration, inappropriate use, etc. [28,29,30]. These problems lead to multiple negative consequences, such as the deterioration of working conditions in the sorting centers of waste pickers’ associations and cooperatives, as well as the mixing of well-sorted and poorly sorted waste, which tends to turn potentially recyclable materials into refuse, that is, non-recoverable waste [30]. These consequences are perceived, on the part of the neighbors of these equipment, as negative effects, which lead to protests for the removal of the equipment.

Thus, in most Brazilian cities, public authorities opt for the door-to-door collection of dry recyclable waste in order to avoid the governance of these externalities. This choice causes a considerable increase in transport costs due to the centralization of the system which, from the point of view of the demand for selective collection, results in low attendance. In other words, given the budgetary limits and high cost of curbside selective collection, generally only a portion of the population is served by these systems.

The centralization and standardization of this service faces another problem, related to the treated waste platform. Considering that in Brazil the largest portion of waste is organic, this represents a limit in expanding the scale of solid waste management systems [31].

Many community experiences, however, have been exploring these limits, when seeking to work on waste management closer to the territories, in an integrated manner. One example is the community management of organic waste in Santa Catarina, which began due to the negative effects of waste disposal in peripheral neighborhoods and, little by little, contributed to the emergence of organic waste management systems recognized as public-community policies [32]. This is, therefore, a common feature of community projects: attention to the negative externalities and NIMBY effects of waste management initiatives in vogue.

This is the case of the Santa Tereza Zero Waste Project (LZST, in Portuguese), an experimental project that aims to build territorial solutions for the recovery of domestic solid waste, integrating them into other local demands, including the promotion of healthy eating and environmental education services. First conceived and implemented in mid-2017, in a neighborhood in Belo Horizonte, the initiative is led by two groups: the Rastafarian culture collective, Roots Ativa, and the waste picker cooperative, Coopesol Leste. It receives the direct support of NAP-UFMG, a research group from the Federal University of Minas Gerais of which the authors of this paper are members. It is also supported by many other organizations that are members of Santa Tereza Zero Waste Network, a network formed by an interaction among waste pickers and their organizations, agroecology activists, NGOs, universities, and territorial actors that seek to promote alternatives for the complete recovery of solid waste in Santa Tereza. This set of actors can be understood as a Territorialized Cooperative Ecosystem (TCE) [33], that is, a collective of different people and organizations that share a horizon and common project in a given territory, and that share efforts and resources (material and immaterial) in favor of this common project.

The experience began with two waste treatment projects: one for recyclables, called Coleta Seletiva Solidária, a curbside selective collection operated by Coopesol Leste; and another for organic waste, called Vida Composta, with a delivery place operated by Roots Ativa in Terra Viva, a neighborhood associative fair. This last project was based on Roots Ativa’s prior experience in the collection and treatment of organic waste in the community where its members live, one of the largest groups of favelas in Brazil.

These two projects were complementary, but not yet integrated. With the support of NAP-UFMG and the other zero waste network members, and in cooperation with other local grassroots movements, Coopesol Leste and Roots Ativa began to test the integration of their services by together carrying out waste management actions at neighborhood “zero waste events”. From these experiments, a proposal emerged that sought to structure a continuous alternative in the neighborhood for the complete treatment of domestic waste, based on the cooperation between the waste picker cooperative and the Rastafarian collective.

To enable the development of this integrated service, the first Zero Waste Nucleus (ZWN) was built between 2019 and 2020 as an ‘intentional place’ [16], embedded with multiple functionalities revolving around two major ones: food and waste management. This intentional place is an example of a facility location geared toward community-based waste management. The construction of this first Nucleus was made possible from the voluntary assignment of the use of an idle land by OWN01, a former resident of the neighborhood, who had an old, but not yet accomplished wish to implement an urban garden in her terrain. A second Nucleus was later built in the neighborhood on rented land.

The ZWN concentrates, in the same space, a place for the assisted voluntary delivery of recyclable waste, with a space for the temporary storage of the material, and a composting system for the local treatment of organic waste—elements related to the waste management service. It also has an agroecological garden and space for the sale of food produced by small associated local producers—elements related to food services.

The integrated service that emerged from this intentional place was then named Residential Zero Waste. The residents who participate in the zero waste service—called project beneficiaries—receive a bucket with a compostable bag to separate and store organic waste in their houses. They also receive orientations to separate recyclable waste in a way that optimizes the sorting work for the waste pickers’ cooperative, which includes keeping glass and large pieces of cardboard separate from the other recyclables. The beneficiaries then take their separated waste to the ZWN, in most cases weekly. As the project has no external financial support, the beneficiaries contribute with a monthly fee, which represents the largest portion of the revenue earned by the initiative and plays a key role in its maintenance.

The beneficiaries are also invited to participate actively, together with the operators, in the project governance, and some actually engage in these activities, characterizing a collaborative involvement [16]. To reach this goal, the expanded governance meeting, with support from NAP, was instituted as a participatory governance device. In these debate spaces, the operators socialize work restrictions around the integrated solution that is being co-built. In the same way, beneficiaries socialize their ways of life and the restrictions they face in order to co-produce the service, such as conditions of accessibility and synchronicity, as well as the need for a better understanding of the recovering processes and of the work it takes to make them happen.

This intervention conducted by NAP-UFMG, together with the LZST project, both in the design of the intentional place and in the follow-up of governance processes, is, therefore, the empirical object on which we guide our reflection on the NIMBY effects in community-based solid waste management. How we intend to organize this reflection is the subject of the next chapter.

4. Research Rationale

In this article, we conduct an a posteriori reflection on the interventions that try to support, among other issues, the governance of externalities in community-based waste management. To do that, we are inspired by Schon’s approach [34], which proposes to analyze the action of specialists from the situations they face in their daily lives [35] instead of concentrating on models of technical rationality. This option seems more suitable in the study of the reasons for the NIMBY effect since, as it is a community experience, the objective of the analysis is not to contribute to the modeling of processes and strategies. The quest is, on the other hand, to understand the difficulties faced and the operational strategies used to overcome them.

However, the objective of the interpretative reflection is not to highlight the specificities of the cases, but rather to seek the generalization of certain aspects that can have dialogue with theories on social acceptability and involvement in facility locations. It is, therefore, a less structured methodology a priori, since social problems are wicked problems. When social groups become actors in the design of facilities, the issue is not so much one of modeling governance processes and compensation logics, but rather, understanding what is specific to a given reality and what local strategies can work as more or less universal perspectives to the systems to which they contribute. If the results and effects of a facility built from a community perspective cannot be reproduced in other locations, due to the factors that make it unique, the operational concepts that emerge from these practices can contribute to reflections on the replicability of the experience.

Therefore, when analyzing the strategies for mitigating or overcoming the NIMBY effect in this experience, it is important, first, to situate the field research that underlies our discussions and then present the data collection methods that support the produced results.

As seen in the previous section, NAP-UFMG, and, specifically, the authors of this paper, were actively involved in the development of the project under analysis. Therefore, the field research originated from the implementation of this intervention based on the systematization of data and production results, as well as on the support provided to resolve problems relating to technological design and the governance of externalities.

Regarding the general design methodologies used, we can cite the “future activity approach” [36]—an approach used by ergonomists when the work to be analyzed does not yet exist—and the “organic design” [37,38] and “incubation in reverse” [39], which propose a displacement of the project activity and incorporate it into the daily production. The research was therefore developed according to two key pillars. The first is the action research perspective [40,41], characterized by being deliberate experiences, which originate on a more or less delimited scale, in a real institutional field, and with a double objective: on the one hand, the search for generalization of what has been developed in the field of knowledge, and, on the other, an effective transformation of social reality [40]. The activity-oriented approaches to ergonomic action [42], which seek to favor a consideration of real work, is the other key pillar of this research.

Material and Methods

The data collection instruments used in this study are based on Activity Ergonomics and Work Ergonomic Analysis [43,44,45,46,47] for in-depth investigation and analysis.

Table 1. Methodological procedures.

Techniques and Tools	Actors Involved	When?	Moments/Data Collection Sources
Video recording, voice recording, transcription and analysis of conversations, validation with the actors involved.	Project operators and the ZWN’s land owner	From August 2019 to January 2020	1. Field visits, meetings, and collective efforts to build ZWN
Voice recording, transcription and analysis of conversations, validation with the actors involved.	Project operators	From September 2019 to November 2020	2. Face-to-face meetings with operators
Voice recording, transcription and analysis of conversations, validation with the actors involved.	ZWN’s land owner	From July 2019 to December 2019	3. Face-to-face meetings with OWN1
Direct observation, participant observation, simultaneous verbalizations, interruptive verbalizations, paper-pencil recording, chronoanalysis, recording of production data.	Project operators	January 2020 and December 2020	4. Follow-up of work activities
Voice recording, transcription and analysis of conversations, validation with the actors involved.	Operators and beneficiaries of the project	From January 2020 to July 2020	5. Expanded governance meeting
Recording of production data	Project operators	From February 2021 to September 2021	6. Production data collection for recyclables processing
Self-confrontation interview	ZWN’s land owner	December 2020	7. Self-confrontation interview with ZWN’s land owner
Semi-structured interviews (with the support of a semi-structured interview guide, see Supplementary Materials), voice recording, transcription and analysis of conversations, validation with the actors involved.	ZWN neighbors	April 2021	8. Pre-scheduled interviews
Recording of household waste generation and destination data using a specific form (see Supplementary Materials).	Beneficiaries	From August 2021 to September 2021	9. Beneficiaries’ household waste generation and destination data collection
Telephone conversations with some of the interlocutors in the research; exchange of private messages on WhatsApp; exchange of messages in WhatsApp groups, formed by the participants of the project.	Operators and beneficiaries of the project, ZWN’s land owner	From August 2019 to September 2021	10. Telephone conversations and virtual messaging

presents the moments and sources of data collection, as well as the techniques and tools used in each. The semi-structured interview guide and specific data collection form is provided in the Supplementary Materials of this publication.

Quantitative data related to waste management were obtained, some during the follow-up of work activities and others from the records of operators (waste pickers and composting operators) when working with waste.

A survey of data on residential waste generation was also carried out by four beneficiaries of the zero waste service, who weighed their separated waste (recyclables, organics, and refuse) for more than a month, following a verification sheet and the guidelines given by the researchers. This record enabled the estimation of the project recovery rate.

To treat the collected data and qualitative information, we used grounded theory techniques [48], such as codification (a process of analysis and the crisscrossing of the collected data and the produced theory that accounts for the data) in its different levels of unfolding (initial coding, focused coding, and theoretical coding).

To close this topic,

Table 2. Characterization of the actors mentioned in the text and emitters of the transcribed speeches.

Characterization/Vinculation	Identifier	Actor Category
Member of Roots Ativa collective and ZWN operator	OPTR01	Operators
Member of Roots Ativa collective and ZWN operator	OPTR02
Member of Roots Ativa collective and ZWN operator	OPTR03
Member of Roots Ativa collective and ZWN operator	OPTR04
ZWN operator	OPRT05
Resident of the ZWN block	NEIG01	Neighbors
Resident of the ZWN block	NEIG02
Resident of the ZWN block	NEIG03
Resident of the ZWN block	NEIG04
Beneficiary of ZWN	BENF01	Beneficiaries
ZWN’s land owner	OWN01	Land Owner
Member of NAP-UFMG	ADV01	Technical advisors
Member of NAP-UFMG	ADV02

is presented below to characterize the actors mentioned in the text and the emitters of the transcribed speeches. The categories of actors are divided into: (1) operators—the waste workers who carry out the project at the operational level (waste pickers and Rastafarians); (2) beneficiaries—the residents who participate in the project, co-producing the service and co-financing the initiative; (3) neighbors—those who live on the same block as the ZWN (some of whom are also beneficiaries); (4) land owner—the owner of the land to which the use was assigned to build the first ZWN; and (5) advisors—the actors who provide technical assistance to the project (including the authors of this article).

5. Results

5.1. Designing Community-Based Waste Management: Care for Negative Externalities

As mentioned above, the Vida Composta project was developed at Terra Viva, a fair where local producers of the solidarity economy sell their products, including food. At the time of the project, there was even a restaurant on site, where meals were served. In the same space, with low-cost social technology, more than a ton of organic waste was treated monthly.

The system used by Roots Ativa is an adaptation of the thermophilic composting method in static windrows with passive aeration, a technology originated at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, also known as the “UFSC Method”. This method has the advantages of its reduced implementation cost and the minimization of the need for windrow management, which is advantageous for operation in reduced spaces [49].

In most applications of the UFSC Method and its derivations, the windrows are assembled freely, without any type of support to conform the waste. In the adaptation used by Roots Ativa, a kind of stall is built with reused pallets, where the windrows are then assembled. This technical option of the group had a double intention: (1) to keep waste and other materials more contained in an environment which has a dense residential neighborhood, an intense circulation of people, and hosts multiple activities, including food services, and (2) to reduce the chances of attracting disease vectors by enclosing the organic waste.

For a more efficient operation, most composting methods recommend working with, in addition to wet organic waste, materials that help the process [50,51,52,53,54]. These materials can be divided into at least two categories: (1) structuring materials, which are those used for physical intervention in the process, acting on moisture control, windrow porosity, structural support, and improving the process of aeration, and (2) regulation materials, used for chemical intervention in the process, that is, to control the carbon-nitrogen ratio (C:N), acidity, etc. The C:N ratio is the proportion of the amount of carbon (C) in relation to the amount of nitrogen (N) present in a given mixture of organic materials. The higher the presence of carbon-rich materials and the lower the presence of nitrogen-rich materials, the higher the C:N ratio, and vice versa.

Both in Vida Composta and in the Residential Zero Waste service, sawdust was the material chosen by Roots Ativa to be added to the composting process. Sawdust, in this case, plays both structuring and regulating roles. Regarding the regulation function, sawdust is a powerful material in the balance of the C:N ratio, which is one of the most commonly available residual materials with a higher C:N ratio. For comparison purposes,

Table 3. Nitrogen concentration and C:N ratio for different waste materials [31].

Carbon-Nitrogen Ratio (C:N)	Estimated Carbon Content (C)	Nitrogen Content (N)	Waste Material
200–500	20–50	0.1	Sawdust
18	30.6	1.7	Cattle manure
15	94.5	6.3	Poultry manure
25	57.5	2.3	Horse dung
4–19	15.2–72.2	3.8	Swine manure
6–10	33–65	5.5–6.5	Excrement
19	4066	214	Mixed pruning
0.8	12–14.4	15–18	Urine
12–15	36–90	3–6	Weeding
11–12	27.5–48	2.5–4	Non-legume vegetable waste
34.8	52.5	1.5	Fruit waste
3	30–14	10–14	Blood

shows the Nitrogen, Carbon, and C:N ratio values for various waste materials, including sawdust:

Some authors in the specialized literature point to ideal C:N ratios, both for an efficient composting process (initial C:N ratio) and for a good quality product (compost) (final C:N ratio).

Table 4. Different scientific references for ideal values of the initial C:N ratio in the composting process [31].

Ideal Initial C:N Ratio	Reference
25	UNEP; CalRecovery, 2005 [46]
25–35	Chiumenti et al., 2005 [47]
25–30	Dulac, 2001 [48]
20–40	Nekliudov; Fedotov; Ivankin, 2008 [49]
26–35	Gomes; Silva; Silva, 2001 [50]

shows some of these indications for the initial C:N ratio:

This ideal initial C:N ratio would be obtained through a mixture of some organic material that one may wish to compost with another regulation material. There are some ways to calculate the proportionality of this mixture for different materials. One of them is represented below, by Equation (1) [54], which indicates, for a given mixture, the proportion, by volume, of material rich in carbon that leads to obtaining a C:N ratio between 26 and 35:

$$PMCR=\frac{\left(30\times Nn\right)-Cn}{Cc-\left(30\times Nc\right)}$$

(1)

where PMRC is part of carbon-rich material, Nn is the nitrogen (N) content of the N-rich material, Cn is the carbon (C) content of the N-rich material, Cc is the C content of the C-rich material, and Nc is the N content of the material rich in C.

Considering the materials that are usually found in domestic organic waste, we can say that there is a predominance of vegetable waste, including peelings and vegetable remains, among others. Using the data presented above and Equation 1 to obtain an ideal amount of sawdust, we would have a variation between 1.01 and 1.86 parts of sawdust per part of wet organic waste, in volume. That is, a mixture for composting would have between a minimum of 50.2% of sawdust for 48.8% of wet waste and a maximum of 65.0% of sawdust for 35.0% of wet waste. Roots Ativa, however, worked with an approximate ratio of three parts of sawdust to every part wet waste, a mixture of 75% sawdust and 25% wet waste.

In one of the meetings held with the operators, seeking to obtain parameters to design the zero waste integrated service proposal, several topics were raised, including the debate on the necessary inputs for the different processes that were being designed. In the dialogue on composting, the importance of sawdust as a production input was raised a few times, one operator speaking more specifically of the proportion used in the mixture. The Roots Ativa members present referred to the composting operation at the Terra Viva fair:

ADV01: “It’s three [of sawdust] for one [of wet organic waste]?”

OPRT01: “It has been 3 for 1 to work safely.”

ADV02: “Working there at the Terra Viva [fair], right?”

OPRT01: “There might be even more.”

OPRT02: “Yes.”

ADV02: “Is that?”

(...)

OPRT01: “Because you couldn’t go wrong there!”

OPRT02: “There it was…”

(Dialogue in a codesign meeting, 2019)

The consequences of this decision for the process and for the product are clear. With excess carbon, microbiological activity tends to decrease, which makes the process slower. Furthermore, a compound with a high C:N ratio can cause a dispute between plant roots and soil microorganisms for available nitrogen. These limitations, however, try to be circumvented by operators, adopting strategies such as the introduction of substances with a high nitrogen content in the windrows or even the reuse of material in process—a dry by-product, still very rich in carbon—as a structuring/regulator material in a new composting cycle. This practice also has the advantage of gaining relative and partial autonomy of the process in relation to “virgin sawdust”, which was costly to obtain for the group. However, it has the disadvantage of significantly prolonging the necessary cycle to obtain a final product.

The concern with the neighborhood and with the negative externalities that the initiative could provoke are also consistently evoked in the project’s extended governance meetings, revealing itself as a shared value within the territorialized cooperative ecosystem, guiding operational co-decisions that are adopted. Some strategies were collectively devised and adopted to materialize the care, such as: (i) the implementation of the garden as a “kick-off” of the ZWN; (ii) the concern with properly closing the recyclable delivery space and protecting it from bad weather; (iii) the logic of temporary storage, which implies a certain periodicity and regularity in the transport of recyclable waste from the ZWN to the Coopesol sorting center; and (iv) the co-decision to use compostable bags for the storage of organic waste, which had, among other intentions, the aim of minimizing the production of odors at the time of waste management [31].

So far, some of the operation strategies adopted to deal with externalities have been presented. However, what are the practical effects of this strategy from the point of view of the immediate neighbors of the ZWN? What about the practical results and effects of the project in terms of, for example, the capacity to recover waste and produce good working conditions for the operators? Do they influence the social acceptance of the NLZs? These issues will be discussed in the next items.

5.2. Some Impressions from Immediate Neighbors

The “immediate neighborhood”, in the sense we use here, is similar to the concept of a “community of residents” used by Manzini [16], that is, a more or less stable group of people who live close to each other and share daily problems. The author uses this concept to differentiate it from “intentional communities” that organize themselves to create “intentional places” in a process he calls placemaking. In other words, ‘communities of residents’ or immediate neighborhoods are unintentional groups, which also create meanings about the physical space they share, in and through everyday action, but in a slower and gradual manner, since they do not have an intention that unites them a priori.

The immediate neighborhood of ZWN is, therefore, the set of residents who live close to these spaces, in such proximity that, unintentionally, they can affect and be affected by them. In more practical terms, we considered being the people who live on the same block as the ZWNs. What do they think about these spaces? How do they influence their everyday life? Do these people attribute meanings to them? Which? Do they want them far or close to their “backyard”?

To try to understand these perceptions, we conducted semi-structured interviews with some of the neighbors of one of the ZWN, more precisely, with four of them. The first, NEIG01 and NEIG02, are an elderly couple who live in the second house below the ZWN; the second, NEIG03, is a young woman who lives opposite, and the third, NEIG04, is a middle-aged woman who lives in one of the houses immediately next door (wall neighbor). Of the four people interviewed, the last two, in addition to being neighbors, also participate as beneficiaries of the zero waste service.

Something common in the perception of the neighbors was the centrality of the garden as the main figure in the perceptual scene. The work with the soil, the organization of work in joint efforts, the dynamics of the development of the planted vegetables, and the “pumpkin cycle” were all highlighted elements.

Nevertheless, some complaints related to the garden production were also noticed. NEIG01 and NEIG02 said they stopped going to ZWN after some frustrated experiences of accessing vegetables: “I don’t try to go there anymore, it’s difficult, but I always get there and…: ‘ah, the cabbage, it’s now just starting to grow...’ So, whenever I went to look for it, it was missing. (...) But then I even stopped going, looking for it.” According to her, a greater availability of foodstuffs could help make life easier for her husband, who needs to walk to the nearest retailer, which is relatively far away, on a steep path.

Neighbors also referred to the intervention of OWN01, who spoke to some people from the immediate neighborhood about the proposal right at the beginning of the occupation. NEIG03 and NEIG04 were two of the neighbors we approached. Upon learning about the proposal, the two and their families even offered to help in whatever way they could: “[If OWN01 had not recommended me] maybe I would have been less open, and I would have been more (...) gosh, let me see first and then [maybe] get involved.” NEIG01 and NEIG02, on the other hand, were not previously informed, and during the interview, repeatedly raised the issue of information as a fragility of the experience.

On the other hand, this prior information also raised concerns about some aspects of the initiative. This was the case with NEIG04, who said she was concerned about waste management in this space: “The waste collection thing raised some doubts in me, ‘waste attracts animals’, that’s what we always think.” OWN01 had comforted her, however, by saying it was “a dry [waste] collection type”. After the implementation of the ZWN and the beginning of its operationalization, NEIG04 became less worried: “Afterwards, I was very calm [in relation to the waste], because I saw that the thing is well organized, structured.”

There were, in general, no negative aspects raised that could be characterized as NIMBY or resistance to the existence of the ZWN on the block. Even for NEIG01 and NEIG02, who were less close to the experience, no feelings of discomfort were verbalized: “There is no mess, there is no dirt, there is no noise (...)”. NEIG03 highlighted that “[it] was a relief to see that it wasn’t going to become a building or a bar.” The speeches reveal an appreciation for the preservation of “quietness”, which is a characteristic of the block of this ZWN, located in an exclusively residential part of the neighborhood and relatively far from the main access roads and from the concentration points of bars and restaurants in the neighborhood.

For NEIG04, a wall neighbor, some isolated negative events were recalled, such as a possible increase in the number of mosquitoes in the summer, the existence of some pockets of standing water, and even the appearance of some rats roaming the land and in her backyard:

“[The cause of the appearance of rats] may be there [in ZWN], [but] it could be for something else... I’ve looked here [in my backyard] in some little corner, [but] we have a cat and a dog. So, it’s difficult, they would hardly do (…) some hole here. But, anyway, I said: ‘well, let’s look for it”.

(NEIG04, in an interview, 2021)

NEIG04, however, relativizes these events, highlighting the care of the ZWN operators as a central element in the relationship:

“(...) it has been [operating] for two years, [and only] now that [rats] have appeared (...) Possibly the fact of the pandemic and the time it was closed, this may have caused this event, right? (...) [and there is] a search for a solution [by the operators], and attention, because there are many things that have no solution! Yeah, you have to be attentive to see what is generating, I mean, you don’t go there and press a button, and say, oh, it’s all right!”

(NEIG04, in an interview, 2021)

5.3. “A More Down-to-Earth Dynamic”: The Emergence of Positive Externalities

In addition to taking care of negative externalities and incorporating them into the performance model, the ZWN also generates positive externalities. It was what could be also interpreted by the neighbors’ speeches.

The ZWNs, by allowing the treatment of waste in the territory where it is generated and a direct relationship between operators and beneficiaries, work as an open school, bringing the population closer to recycling practices. Furthermore, the kind of practical and active engagement that participation in the ZWN requires, for the co-production of the service, represents in itself a kind of hands-on training.

“It changed my perception! (...) when I learned about recycling, you know, I was a child, you think, we learn at school, and we don’t put it into practice, like that. (...) sometimes we end up not going after it, right? So, it kind of came after me, [the ZWN came] here and it kind of came after me, if I ever move from here, or, anyway, [the ZWN changes] too, I want to continue with these habits, It’s something I want to take with me for the rest of my life.”

(NEIG03, in an interview, 2021)

The excerpt from NEIG03’s speech reveals the importance she attaches to her engagement as a co-producer of the zero waste service, as well as her change in perception and behavior in relation to waste. Although she “learned about recycling” at school, it was only through practice, made possible by her participation in the zero waste service, that she actually changed her habits and consolidated them.

In the same sense, there is the report of another beneficiary, BENF01, who wrote a letter narrating her experience and sent it to the project operators. In the text, she tells details about how she found out about the project, her first visit to the ZWN with her youngest son, her immediate adherence to the project, and how she incorporated the waste care routine into her home, in collaboration with her family. In addition, she highlights other aspects of the project, which, according to her, contribute to her education and that of her family:

“(…) Participating in the [zero waste] Project the way it was designed, giving us the opportunity to exchange information at meetings, feedback from administrators, clarifications on the reuse of waste, has contributed to raising awareness in the family, which is a unique experience. I used to think about the importance of sustainability, but I didn’t actually implement it. As the project is carried out, I can see this positive result in my life with my family, experiencing the practice of selective waste collection, talking with my children, still teenagers, and with those closest to me. I believe this to be a conscious transformation and formation of new concepts that are making a difference in my life and that will make a difference in the future, I hope, in the lives of my children.”

(excerpt from letter from BENF01, 2020)

Another positive externality emerges by simply occupying and taking care of vacant urban lands, which previously generated negative externalities for the neighborhood. This was present in the land of the first ZWN, about which one of the neighbors always complained to OWN01 when the spontaneous vegetation grew. It was also noticeable in the second ZWN, when the land, which had not been managed for years, was cleaned and prepared for occupation. This effect entails, among other things, the expansion of conditions for the validation and social acceptance of the ZWN by the neighborhood.

Furthermore, the co-production of the waste management service and other activities developed in the ZWN, as a multifunctional space, create conditions to mediate the development of a series of relationships in a proximity economy. NEIG04, as an immediate neighbor of the ZWN, talks about the role of the Nucleus as a meeting space that enables greater conviviality with the neighborhood:

“(...) it’s very different when you see an empty lot and when you see a lot occupied with, you know, with a relationship (...) Before (…) we had a lot [of things that] worried us, (…) we were always like, let’s look, and such (...). And after the occupation... it became more alive, right? (...) And when the [ZWN] arrives, it’s as if you were surrounded, you know, by a relationship of neighbors. (...) it’s as if you (...) extended your, your family of neighbors. (…) Well, so that’s something that I think, that, that’s pretty cool.”

(NEIG04, in an interview, 2021)

The exchanges take place both in the ZWN space and in the WhatsApp group that brings together operators, beneficiaries, and other supporters, and in the ecosystem’s expanded governance meetings. They happen among these actors, among neighbors, and among other users of the space, people who, for the most part, do not know each other at first. NEIG04 gave an example of the dynamic of these exchanges, which NEIG04 summarized as a “more down-to-earth dynamic”:

“I’m not from the countryside, you know, I wasn’t born in the countryside. But my whole family is from the countryside, and I used to go to the countryside a lot. So, it reminds me a lot of that thing grandma used to say: ‘go to the neighbor, get whatever’. ‘See if he has a balm’. (...) So, this type of project, I think it, it changes this dynamic (...) it’s a more down-to-earth dynamic, more relaxed, more... you know? Yeah, [if I’m feeling sick] I don’t go to the [drugstore]. I’ll see if there’s a balm. If not, I’ll see if it has boldo. If you don’t have... You know? So, it’s... these exchange relationships, you know, and things, and ideas, and... yeah, and issues, which are everyday issues (...) You stop going there on YouTube, and ask there, for the boys [from the project]. OPRT03, did you see? You’re aware? You know? Then, the [WhatsApp] group goes there, [somebody] says something you didn’t know. (...). So, it’s very different, like that. I think this human relationship, you know, this possibility of exchange, of human relationships, I think it changes your well-being a lot, you know? Your quality of life. I think this has a direct action, like that.”

(NEIG04, in an interview, 2021)

The proximity and conviviality in the service relations also seem to have immediate practical effects on the project performance. The participation of beneficiary families in the zero waste service allows them to be able to recover around 80% of the waste generated in their homes. Working with recyclables at ZWN carries the advantages of a closer relationship with the beneficiaries and the possibility of pre-sorting some types of problematic materials for the sorting process in the cooperative’s shed, such as cardboard and glass. These operational strategies increase the efficiency, improve the waste pickers’ working conditions, and reduce the risk of accidents, such as those involving broken glass. The quality verified in the separation of waste at the source also leads to a high level of purity of the material. Low reject rates are found in the recyclable flow, ranging from 1% to 3% of the total recyclable waste received, while in other collection modalities, it is around 15% to 20% in the most efficient cases [55]. In organic waste working, the most impacting implementation was the co-decided adoption of compostable bags in the operation, which led to a 240% efficiency increase in the composting operation and to a significant decrease in the physical workload.

6. Case Analysis and Discussion

6.1. From NIMBY to YIMBY: Reflections on “Resistance” in the Territory

Since NIMBY is an unquestionably legitimate phenomenon, how should we deal with it in the implementation of decentralized and community-based waste management systems and initiatives? Or even, would it be possible to transform the NIMBY effect into a “YIMBY effect”? If so, how?

Lake [56] would possibly respond negatively to the questions presented, arguing that the basis of community resistance to unwanted uses of land and space is part of a structural societal problem, related to the conflict of community needs and interests with the demands of capital. Without failing to recognize the strength of this argument, we will now offer a closer analysis of the cases presented in the previous topic related to the social acceptability of the ZWN in its neighborhood in order to find clues to answer the questions posed, but now from a context developed from other economic and ontological perspectives.

Let us begin with the analysis of the composting process operated by the members of Roots Ativa. At first glance, adopting a strictly technical view of the process, one could rightly say that the operators were working with a wrong proportion between sawdust and wet organic waste, which would lead to losses in the process (slower speed, low efficiency, etc.) and in the product (compound with an inappropriate final C:N ratio, with a high presence of lignocellulosic material, etc.). He/she could even recommend an adjustment, indicating that proportionately less sawdust should be used in the mixture. A closer look, however, can reveal that other variables play an important role in this decision.

This analysis of the situation reveals the care taken in the composting operation at Terra Viva fair, due to the contextual characteristics of the space (environment with a dense residential neighborhood, with an intense circulation of people, and that hosts multiple activities, including food, etc.), whose ecosystem (other producers, customers, etc.) and their relationships form a specific social fabric that needs to be taken into account by composting operators. The sawdust overload in the process is explained by the dynamics of the territory, the social contours where the technology was inserted. “To work safely” indicates an operative strategy adopted to handle negative externalities and take care of them. It is, in essence, “working in confidence” [57], in an active search to minimize the risks associated with the situation, and thus work without fear of having a lower performance, of being misjudged, or of being scolded. This is done, among other things, by incorporating these externalities into the performance model itself, in order to achieve a minimal social legitimacy. It was in this way that the Roots Ativa operators were able to maintain the composting operation Terra Viva fair for about a year and a half.

When oversized, sawdust ends up generating the negative consequences presented above, both in the process and in the final product. However, the choice of the process parameters, in this case, is not a purely technical matter: even though there are optimal levels, the social shaping of the solution will also place restrictions that often impose a deviation of these parameters in relation to their optimum. Moreover, these restrictions are always situated, emerging from each symbolic site, that is, from the “(...) evolutionary conceptions of the world composed of beliefs (myths, values, representations, etc.), rites, routines, habits, empirical and/or theoretical knowledge (social knowledge), models of individual and collective action, etc. (...)” [58] (p. 33) and its “local truths”.

To illustrate this situated character, on one occasion, OPRT03 and OPRT04 highlighted the difference in the systems they operated in Santa Tereza and in the community they live in, where Roots Ativa has its headquarters. In the latter, composting was carried out on an idle portion of land belonging to a resident with whom the group had close relations, who then assigned the use of the space. It was a piece of land located on the plateau of a ravine, and with no immediate neighbors; there were houses nearby, but none that bordered the land, as in the ZWN in Santa Tereza. In exchange for using the land, Roots Ativa members provided part of the organic waste collected to the land owner to feed his pigs. In this space, the model of composting in pallet stalls was not used, but rather, the making of windrows directly on the ground using weeding residues (C:N ratio lower than sawdust) as the structuring and regulating material, which provided a more efficient process and a higher quality final product.

OPRT04: “On the hill [our community], we go without a fence, right? These here are the model, you know, because I think like this, if we were really going to take it, if there was another space, another land, like this, just to do this composting, right, rasta.”

OPRT03: “Yeah, if it were a different place, like there on the hill, which is more (...) You know? You just make the windrow.”

ADV02: “Yes.”

OPRT04: “It’s just the windrow! Because this is the model, this is the model [of Santa Tereza] more, it is urban…”

(Dialogue in a Return of Experience meeting, 2019)

Of course, other factors also weighed on the adoption of this “no fence” model, such as the fact that Roots Ativa, since 2015, has been running the composting project in the territory where they lived and has built social legitimacy around it with the community. However, it is not possible to delve deeper into this specific analysis, since it was not possible to conduct an in-depth study of the relationship of this project and its composting space with the neighborhood.

As we have seen, care for the neighborhood is also revealed as a value shared by the different actors of the territorialized cooperative ecosystem. The zeal for good neighborly relations which, more broadly, can be considered as a value of the symbolic place of belonging [58] formed by the Santa Tereza neighborhood, is also a co-constructed value in the ecosystem, an immaterial resource that it seeks to develop. For example, the design decision to start the construction of ZWN with the garden, and even its central location in the space, seems to have had a positive effect. In addition to the aesthetic issue, the agroecological garden and the production of vegetables also appear as central elements from the point of view of the perception of usefulness in relation to the space.

Co-decisions at an operational level are also taken considering, as a criterion, the minimization of potential disturbances to the immediate vicinity of the ZWNs. One such case is that of compostable bags, which could minimize the bad odors emitted in the composting operation, and thus potentially disturb the neighbors less. This criterion, along with others, was therefore taken into account in the co-decision that led to the implementation of this new residential storage technology. The common understanding is that the non-internalization of this negative externality in the territorial performance model can harm this very performance and the “value proposition” of the economic model [33] and, at the limit, make the construction of the solution unfeasible.

The different strategies adopted were also ways to create the conditions for building a good relationship with the neighborhood. Without a doubt, it is not possible to state that they completely overcome some contradictions in waste management in urban cities, especially industrialized recyclable waste. For example, the short-term storage of recyclable waste in the center of the city is only possible thanks to the longer-term storage of the same waste in the outskirts, where the Coopesol Leste shed and most waste picker cooperatives in Brazil are located. However, to some extent, it was about dealing with some of the possible negative externalities in a territorial solution, internalizing them in the performance model itself, different from what is usually practiced by traditional companies [33,59].

In this sense, the expanded governance meeting plays a key role as a reflexivity device. Fostering care for the neighborhood as a shared value in this device means making a way of thinking [59] common within the ecosystem, which always assumes this care as a relevant guideline in the construction of technical proposals and the performance model. Furthermore, these meetings function like participatory governance devices which play a specific role in the co-construction of the zero waste project as a territorial solution, contributing to its improvement through the development of immaterial resources derived from the service relationship (such as competence, trust, and pertinence), which are essential elements to foster a substantial engagement and achieve a quality co-production [31].

The presentation of the cases in the previous topic provides elements to conclude that the social acceptance of the ZWNs is given not only by the care taken with the negative externalities, but also by the positive externalities that they provide to the territory. By analyzing the verbalizations of the ZWN neighbors, it can be concluded that the idea of healthy, accessible, and locally produced food, as a socially shared value, promotes the existence of a “predisposition to trust” in the neighborhood [17]. On the other hand, the frustration of the expectation associated with this value contributes to a decrease in the level of trust, especially for neighbors who are not beneficiaries of the ZWN and who, therefore, are less involved in the experience. As the level of trust is lower in this case, it is harder for an emergent “search for meaning” to exist. However, the decrease in confidence in the ability to meet this specific expectation does not lead to resistance in relation to the ZWN space and to the consequent emergence of NIMBY.

Another finding that one can reach from the speeches of the different neighbors is the role of information and borrowed trust as an intermediary resource in the first contact with the project idea. The initial understanding about the intentions and objectives of the project and its actors, and the functionalities of the ZWN, proved to be more developed in NEIG03 and NEIG04, who received an early recommendation by OWN01, than in NEIG01 and NEIG02, who did not. The recommendation contributed both to the formation of the predisposition to trust and to the construction of the initial level of trust [17]. On the other hand, the advanced information about some aspects of the project—especially about the forecast of waste management activities in the space—seems to initially provoke uncertainty in the people who access it, confirming the paradoxical global versus local perception tendency for recycling. This issue, in the case studied, seems to be well-equated by the confidence lent by ONW01 to the closest neighbors in relation to the project, as an intermediary resource of trust [17]. This indicates the advantage of the active participation of previously engaged local actors in the local mobilization process. Hence, information is used as a strategic resource.

Furthermore, when informed by OWN01, both NEIG03 and NEIG04 engaged and became, to some extent, actively involved in the common project, becoming part of the “intentional community” [16]. In other words, they become, even with less active involvement, part of the group of people who organize themselves to create the ZWN as an “intentional place”, making some of its resources available during the period of the construction of the Nucleus, such as access to the bathroom, water, equipment, and utilities, including extension cords, energy and internet, tools, etc., and even their attention to the space, especially when activities were suspended due to the pandemic and operators were not attending the ZWN. On a certain occasion, for example, NEIG04 warned the operators about the accumulation of water in some parts of the Nucleus after rain, and also about a pumpkin plant which climbed the wall and was starting to occupy the sidewalk. In relation to NEIG01 and NEIG02, the construction of meanings by the two in relation to the ZWN space takes place gradually, in the flow of everyday life, as normally occurs in “communities of residents” [16].

The recommended trust appears, then, as an important element in the dynamics of trust production [17]. However, trust can only be maintained and raised through practice. In the analyzed case, “care for the other” appears as the main direct resource of trust, which is enriched from observable performance, meets the engagement expectations, and has an impact on raising the level of trust. Care translates, for NEIG04, into the continuous monitoring of issues, sharing a differentiated exchange [60] to solve these issues, in a “quick response to any type of problem”. In her reflection, one can also notice a “search for meaning” [17] for the problems that arise—the cause of the problem that is not certain, the pandemic that may have contributed to the problem, the recognition of the complexity of the problem, etc.—and an active co-participation in the search for solutions.

Other positive externalities are also highlighted by the neighbors who are beneficiaries of the experience, such as: (1) the pedagogical character of the ZWN and the experience with the project, for the beneficiaries and their families, and (2) the space of the ZWN as a mediator for the creation and maintenance of convivial relations and for the production of sociability. These are values that, as seen, emerge from the co-construction of the service and, as positive externalities, also contribute to offset possible unintentional negative effects, thus increasing the social acceptance of the project. The participants mobilize their different intentions, knowledge, and specialties, and not only focus on the co-production of the project, but also on everyday issues, the reproduction of life, and well-living. These dynamics contribute to the efficiencies obtained in the sorting and composting process, based on the more active involvement of beneficiaries in the co-production of the service. They also open up the possibility of a dynamic of conviviality in the big city [61].

All the dynamics described in this item point to a possible situation in decentralized waste management, in which the urban equipment used has the potential to overcome the NIMBY syndrome and, in the opposite direction, even provoke, based on an emerging and participatory construction, a YIMBY effect in the territory where they are installed. It is possible to formulate, as a synthesis of the ZWN experience and other similar cases, some design principles for urban facilities intended for decentralized and community waste management systems. In this sense, we propose the operational concept of “Place for Assisted Voluntary Delivery” (LEVA, in Portuguese), which is briefly developed in the next section.

6.2. Design for Proximity: LEVA as an Operational Concept

The operational concept, LEVA (Place for Assisted Voluntary Delivery), emerges as an alternative to circumvent the challenges of implementing decentralized selective collection systems that effectively dialogue not only with the communities, but also with the work carried out by waste pickers, together with alternatives that can equalize the problems, deal with the externalities involved, and articulate network solutions. The ZWNs presented in this paper are good examples of LEVA and its possible results and effects, which were designed, from the beginning, taking this concept into account.

In a simplified sense, the main characteristics of LEVA, which can be abstracted from the ZWN and other emerging practices [30,62] (and from the idea of “imploding” the traditional shed of waste pickers), are spreading it throughout the city in a strategy of the decentralization of waste management [63] that includes: (1) the presence of a waste picker who takes care of and organizes the space, performs pre-sorts that facilitate work in the sorting shed and interact with the population, enhancing competence development and communication, and creating bonds with the residents; (2) a basis for the integral treatment of waste, including organic waste, enabling the integration of other local operators and residents; and (3) the potential to fill the existing gap between the formal and informal waste management system, bringing cooperative and autonomous waste pickers together into an integrated and hybrid system.

Without intending to be a pre-conceived or unique model, LEVA is adaptable to the demands of the territories and communities involved in its conception. The basic principles of LEVA provide the necessary guidelines for the development and creation of waste management strategies connected with the local reality:

(1)

Relate directly with the productive sector of recycling with the participation of waste pickers, informal or not;

(2)

Develop strategic governance with actions related to the participation and co-construction of the model, community organization, democratization of waste management, and territorial articulation;

(3)

Integrate public or private urban policies aimed at recycling.

Different from the unassisted voluntary delivery equipment commonly found in cities (such as the LEVs or PEVs presented above), LEVA proposes to provide integrated services in a space of articulation of collection, mobilization, and environmental education. The structure of LEVA enables the development of strategies for the collection and receipt of recyclable materials in general, including organic waste for composting, and integrates directly with community service regarding the guidelines related to waste disposal. Differently from dump sites, where there is accumulated garbage and a bad smell, LEVA brings innovation to the process and allows the community to experiment, in the sense that it assumes a more active involvement and takes care of the urban facility. In addition, they can have permanent access to information on the care and disposal of other materials, such as batteries, large-volume furniture, light bulbs, and even expired medications and healthcare objects (needles and syringes, for example) that should follow a specific collection flow and treatment.

European and American Zero Waste cities and their experiences can indeed serve as inspiration, in some respects, for cities in the Global South. However, we cannot imagine or expect that a simple “technology transfer” will work in our contexts. The strategy of mimicking waste treatment technologies from the North has led to costly and unsuccessful investments, from mechanical biological treatment systems to incinerators [64]. For example, intensive mechanization and automation systems are not the only or best technical alternatives to solving problems regarding selective collection, sorting, and the reverse logistics of solid waste in cities [65]. In addition to being expensive and inefficient, mechanized/automated collection systems are usually implemented without the participation of the local population or any extended governance device that directly involves the citizens of the territory. The problems relating to the quality and quantity of collected recyclables and the recovery of organic waste can be better solved if we rely on the extensive network existing in Brazilian cities, instead of importing technical systems that, in addition to removing a means of livelihood from people in socially vulnerable situations, blatantly misuse public resources.

7. Conclusions

The present study explored an experience in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in which an ecosystem of cooperation was created by joining a waste pickers’ cooperative; a collective of urban agroecology activists; an alliance of social actors, including a university, NGOs, and MBOs; and a local community in a collaborative experience of zero waste that integrates waste pickers. More specifically, we focus on the Zero Waste Nucleus, which is an intentional location built in the territory that supports this experience. The core of the analysis and discussion was how the process of developing the social acceptability of this space with the neighborhood took place, and how this space contributes to enhancing residents’ involvement in the project. We showed that daily care with negative externalities, the emergence of positive externalities, and the development of immaterial resources within the community, such as trust, are main factors for good social acceptability.

We also noticed that the active and collaborative involvement of the intentional community, besides contributing to improving the project’s performance, also helped to develop a sense of usefulness and construct a social fabric that enhanced the legitimacy of the ZWNs. This dynamic in turn provided feedback to the social acceptance process itself. Our conclusion presented the operational concept of LEVA as a synthesis of design elements that can help build places to support community-based waste management systems.

A limitation of this study concerns the in-depth semi-structured interviews with the ZNW immediate vicinity. Since they were held in-person during an acute phase of the pandemic, it was not possible to receive a broad number of participants and other perceptions. Nevertheless, we assumed that, with the in-depth interviews, it was possible to obtain detailed information that was sufficient enough to understand some phenomena and produce our findings, especially in regard to the theme of social acceptance, since we interviewed next-door neighbors, who are generally the most affected by externalities. Nevertheless, future studies should try to reach a broader sample and even sample the newer ZWNs in the vicinity.

This study was limited to one Brazilian case, even though its findings, especially regarding LEVAs, were achieved by taking into account other studies and investigations of NAP-UFMG members [30,62]. Nonetheless, future studies using the same or similar methodologies should investigate other similar experiences in Brazil and worldwide, which could be useful for two main purposes: (1) to enhance the knowledge production about NIMBY, social acceptance, and residents’ involvement as a way to better understand decentralized community-based waste management possibilities; and (2) to further develop the LEVA operational concept in order to provide a concise design alternative for decentralized community-based solid waste management.