REPORT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

LIMA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Just a few years ago, waste recycler Genaro Jorge Durán Contreras and his colleagues were branded "nut cases" and drug addicts, picked up by police or chased away from their foraging for recyclables.

 "But now we have a permit to work. The abuse is over," said the 49-year-old father of six at the Lima office of Ciudad Saludable (Healthy City), a Peruvian organization that helps waste pickers set up formal groups and micro-enterprises.Durán who heads a 17-member association operating in the smart Miraflores district of Peru's capital, explained how the country's 2009 "Law of the Recycler" - the first of its kind in the world - transformed his job into a respected trade.

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http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/12/18/us-peru-environment-waste-idINKBN0JW1GB20141218