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This article presents the “Design Reciclado” Project, which has as main objective promoting thesocial-economic inclusion of waste pickers from the ASMARE – “Associação dos Catadores de Papel,Papelão e Material Reaproveitável de Belo Horizonte” – association. The project was based on thedevelopment of products and other design actions by the waste pickers, that had to use an ecological andsustainable appeal. The items would be produced and commercialized by the association to promote analternative income source for the waste pickers involved in the Project. The methodological procedures usedincluded an active participation of undergraduate scholarship students, ASMARE’s waste pickers and otherguest contributors on the conception, cooperation and integration of methods and instruments during theexecution of the project. Dialogic relations based on proximity between the subjects, respect and mutualrecognizing guided the activities. The steps of development of the project were: (1) Preparing the students forthe community work and (2) Researching and studying groups and institutions from all over the world that dothis type of work; (3) Preparing didactic material to be used on the workshops; (4) qualification of the wastepickers for the development of the products; (5) development of the products, brands and packaging togetherwith the collectors; (6) disclosing of obtained results with the program. From the outcomes, it is possible toconclude that the project achieved most of its goals, despite the difficulties and changes that happened overthe development of the activities. Also, the development of the project activities allowed the integrationbetween society and university, promoting academic learning for the students.