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Loading ...Minas’ New State Waste Law Features Take-Back
Sunday, January 18th, 2009Last week the governor of Minas Gerais (MG) signed the State Solid Waste Policy Law. The Law’s 57 articles establish the principles, guidelines, goals and instruments for the correct management of waste, and defines the obligations of different waste generators and the users of urban sanitation services. Minas is not the first Brazilian state to […]
Minas Trumpets Its Waste Policy Achievements
Saturday, December 27th, 2008Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second most populous state and one of its mining, metals and agriculture powerhouses, is pretty proud of its recent accomplishments in waste policy and management. I’ve chronicled here a couple of their steps, such as the modernized inspection/enforcement regime and the creation of the Waste Reference Center (CMRR). But that only touches […]
Minas Rewards Companies Getting ISO14001 Certification
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008The State Environmental Policy Council (Conselho Estadual de Política Ambiental – Copam) of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais (MG) has adopted a new norm that MG officials hope will encourage more companies to get ISO 14001 certification of their environmental management system (EMS). The norm sets conditions under which enterprises subject to environmental licensing […]
Using Steel Waste as Fertilizer?
Monday, June 9th, 2008Synopsis in English: The Environmental Policy Council (Copam) of the state with the bulk of Brazil’s iron and steel manufacturing capacity, Minas Gerais, recently ruled [via what they call a binding “Normative Deliberation” (Deliberação Normativa- DN)] that certain iron and steel making wastes can be utilized as fertilizer in eucalyptus plantations in that state. Certain […]
Digitizing Environmental Enforcement
Saturday, August 4th, 2007Minas Gerais is moving to accomplish something no other Brazilian state — or probably any Latin American/ Caribbean (LAC) nation, for that matter — has yet done: digitize its environmental inspection and enforcement. Currently Minas is winding up a pilot project in which its 21 waste and sanitation inspectors do much of their work utilizing […]