In the absence of a formalized, pervasive recycling system how does the informal sector service the city?

Brazil has a long history of informal recycling cooperatives, whose members often try to make a living by collecting recyclable material in the city and sell it in bulk to industry. In the recent years, informal economies of waste pickers have received much attention from the academic community, especially in the fields of policy, economics and anthropology. And yet the spatial organization is still poorly understood – not only by academics but also by the cooperatives themselves. The Cooperatives usually operate on a tacit knowledge – little data is available about their work processes. As a result, much knowledge gets lost in the process when experienced workers leave the cooperative, and collection happens in a poorly coordinated way.

Forage Tracking seeks to map the tacit knowledge and spatial organization of informal recyclers. Using location-detecting hardware and software this research investigates how Catadores, informal recyclers in Brazilian cities, find and collect material in the city. It also seeks to develop participatory platforms that will help them to organize their activities and connect the cooperative to the citizens.

For further information see Forage Tracking.

• 8-9th March, Lab hosting a workshop with Fraunhofer Institute at MIT, Boston.
• 13-18th March, Digital Design Workshop site visits to Madrid, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro.
• 21st March, Carlo Ratti to present at Ecobuild, London.
• 22nd March, Carlo Ratti to present at the Economist's conference, Technology Frontiers, London.
• 25th March, Senseable City Lab will be joining Rem Koolhaas for the mid term reviews at the Strelka Institute.
• 29th March, Carlo Ratti to give a lecture at the Politecnico di Milano.
• 29th March, Assaf Biderman to present at 2012 MIT Brazil Challenge of Innovation Conference in Florianopolis, Brazil.
• 30th March, Carlo Ratti to talk at the Economist's Future Cities event, Moscow.
• 3rd April, Carlo Ratti presenting at Il Conagesp, Brasilia.

• Esquire presents the Senseable City Lab's work on the United Cities of America.
• CNN covers the Senseable City Lab's CO2GO project in Hacking the City for a Greener Future.
• Coverage of the Future of Cities workshop hosted by David Cameron and Nick Clegg and attended by amongst others Carlo Ratti, Richard Rogers, and Bjarke Ingels in the World Architecture News and The Times.
• Carlo Ratti joins a team of leading thinkers to discuss challenges and opportunities of urbanization in the Networked Society in Ericsson's documentary Thinking Cities.
• The Digital Creative City, a project that includes Carlo Ratti and Dennis Frenchman has been touted as the Hollywood of Digital Creativity, receiving wide coverage in ABC.es, Guadalajara Reporter, and El Economista.

• 2-3rd February, Assaf Biderman spoke at The World Architects Masters 2012, Ischgl, Austria.
• 10th February, Dennis Frenchman, Assaf Biderman and Carlo Ratti launched the Digital Design Workshop at MIT.
• 16th February, Dietmar Offenhuber gave a talk at the University of Birmingham, Alabama.
• 27th February, Carlo Ratti spoke at Axìa: un modello per la sostenibilità, Milan.
• 29th February, Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman spoke at the Design Indaba, Cape Town, South Africa.
• The Copenhagen Wheel has recently won a Green Dot Award in the Transportation category.