What about reuse and reduce?
I don't know if your thesis is strictly about recycling, as in collecting items to be reprocessed. Would you be looking into the other two "r's", reuse and reduce? And what about just straight-up waste management? Rural or urban?
If so, I think you should really consider the informal and formal ways that people reuse things, or extend their life by giving them other purposes or fixing to make them last the longest possible. In other countries, when a an item breaks (like a shoe, fan, plastic chair, backpack, etc.), it gets tossed because it's "easier" or preferred to replace it. With the economic situation here and the higher cost of imported goods, people would rather pay 20 pesos to get the heel on their shoe repaired or sew the leg back onto the chair with metal wire. Paint can = flowerpot. Even if these things get tossed, they get scavenged by people who fix them to reuse themselves or sell.
There are people dedicated to scavenging things like scrap metal, big plastic jugs, and anything else that could be reused out of the trash in front of homes, businesses and the dumps. Very little with any life left in it gets tossed. I think dumpster diving in the U.S. is great, but here you won't be finding any treasures, that's for sure. I also think freecycle.org is awesome, but look and you won't find much activity in this country.
Some people make recycling their small business, and have flatbed trucks and drive around announcing that they will buy old radiators, metal scraps, batteries, fridges, motorcycle parts, etc. that people have rusting away in the yard. There are also guys that walk around with megaphones announcing they buy pieces of used gold from broken jewelry or whatever, and they then go and sell it to be made into something else. Places even exist that buy OLD mattresses, no matter how nasty, and use the springs/wood but put new fabric and padding on them to re-sell.
So, in my opinion, in a developing country such as the DR where many institutions have trouble functioning, something like large-scale recycling that requires a certain level of structure and organization is not common or an easy sell...unless it has clear and immediate economic benefits. I am talking about national, provincial and municipal institutions. In this situation, look to the role of smaller-scale reducing, reusing and recycling being done by individuals motivated by economic gain and necessity rather than pure goodwill toward the environment.
