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Urban Solid Wastes (RSU) are retrieved from domestic, commercial, industrial and anthropic activities. The production of RSU has been on the increase in the last decades and recycling is an alternative for the reduction of amounts. Collector coops and recycling industry may contribute towards decreasing the effect of RSU increase. Coops connect the final consumer and the recycling industry, while contributing towards collection, separation and improvement of materials, without any direct contact with the recycling industry. Current paper identifies and describes the role of collector coops within the process of RSU return to the industry in two coops in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. A semi-structured interview, analysis of documents and non-participating observation were the tools employed. The analysis describes how coops operate by studying their history and processes. Main results comprised the understanding of social roles which is the generation of income for vulnerable people; environment, or rather, the decrease of municipal landfills and the conscience-raising of the population on recycling; and economic, or rather, conceding prime matter and low-cost fuel which coops develop in the community and food chains they supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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