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Loading ...More on the Solar Water Heater Made of PET Bottles
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007One of the most popular recent posts here on The Temas Blog has been the one about the inexpensive solar water heater being built around Paraná state out of used PET bottles and aseptic packaging (tetrabrik). For reasons I can’t quite work out, it has proven particularly popular in Asia… Given the level of interest, […]
Inside the “Casa do Bem”
Monday, October 8th, 2007If you enter the Wal-Mart Supercenter hypermarkets in Brazil, and walk the aisles, you may run across an unusual large exhibit — a mock-up of a miniature house that you can enter and explore. It has faux windows and flower boxes, and corners representing the interiors of a kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. Look closer. […]
Minas Seeks Packaging Waste Dialogue with Tetra-Pak
Friday, September 28th, 2007Paraná forced a deal on Tetra Pak regarding waste from its long-life packaging (aseptic) packaging; now Minas Gerais (MG) wants a dialog about the same issue. If I were Tetra Pak executives, I’d start being concerned about the direction the drink packaging waste issue is taking in Brazil (if they aren’t already). As I mentioned […]
Aluminum Recycling Reconsidered
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007A Sixth Year as Aluminum Can Recycling Champion The Brazilian Aluminum Association (ABAL) recently announced that Brazil recycled 139,100 metric tons (Mt) of aluminum cans (about 10.3 billion cans) in 2006 for a recycling rate of 94.4%, assuring the first-place position for Brazil for the sixth year in a row, ahead of Argentina, Japan, Switzerland, […]
Tetra-Pak Chooses to Deal
Thursday, July 26th, 2007Synopsis in English: In May the environment officials of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná called in Tetra Pak officials and told them to come up with a proposal to solve the post-consumer waste problem in that state associated with their long-life (aseptic) packaging — or face drastic action by the government, such as banning […]
A Solar Water Heater Made of PET Bottles
Monday, July 2nd, 2007Synopsis in English: The government of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná has been conducting an interesting experiment in environmental design utilizing waste materials. Since August 2006 state agencies have sponsored projects to construct solar water heaters constructed from used PET bottles and “long life” (aseptic) milk packaging. So far some 3,000 such heaters have […]
Tetra-Pak Given 60 Days to Propose Packaging Waste Solution… Or Else!
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007Synopsis in English: In a meeting held in Curitiba in the middle of May, the government of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná gave Tetra-Pak executives (including the Vice President for Central and South America) 60 days to come up with their own proposal to solve the post-consumer waste problem in that state associated with […]
“Trash Photos”
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006From time to time I’ll be posting in this blog some of what my family and friends have jokingly come to call “trash photos” — pictures taken everywhere — mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean, but some in North America too — on my favorite issue, waste management, in all its manifestations. Some I’ll […]