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Loading ...A Bill to Require EIAs Before Packaging Drinks in Plastic
Saturday, May 30th, 2009Last year in a post about efforts in Brazil to stop the sale of beer in PET bottles, I explored some of the possible ramifications of an April 2008 rejection by a federal judge of all challenges to a 2002 ruling that brewers wishing to bottle their beer in PET or any other plastic must […]
New Movement on Recycling Used Motor Oil Packaging in Brazil?
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009Last year I posted about (slow-building) momentum in Brazil to collect and recycle the packaging that the new motor oil comes in, starting originally in 2003 in Rio de Janeiro (RJ) as a preemptive move by an industry group* and then expanded to Rio Grande do Sul (RS) in 2005, Paraná (PR) in 2007 and […]
São Paulo Offers Packaging Bill for Public Comment
Friday, May 22nd, 2009The Environment Secretariat (SMA) of São Paulo (SP) today published for public comment on its website a draft bill for a law on post-consumer packaging. The bill would create a rather complex shared responsibility system to ensure that post-consumer packaging in SP is either recycled or reused. Anyone wishing to submit comments or suggested changes to the […]
Brazil Raises Steel Can Recycling to 49%
Thursday, March 19th, 2009From the World Steel Association: Global steel can recycling rate reaches highest recorded level The World Steel Association (worldsteel) announced today that 7.2 million metric tons (mmt) of steel cans were recycled across the 37 countries reporting in 2007. This avoided approximately 13 mmt of CO2 emissions. The global recycling rate for steel cans was […]
Parana to Tetra-Pak: Fulfill Your Commitments
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009Just seven months ago Paraná’s Environment Secretary, Rasca Rodrigues, was singing the praises of aseptic packaging producer Tetra Pak for its implementation of a deal negotiated in 2007 concerning the firm’s responsibility for the waste problem in the state related to its packaging. Now he’s charging them with failing to live up to their commitments. […]
Supreme Court: Producers Decide Which Third-Party Organizations Will Handle Their Waste Obligations
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009Brazil’s Superior Court just issued an important ruling regarding producer responsibility. The case involved a challenge to the exclusive right of a third party organization to control the implementation of a producer responsibility waste recovery obligation imposed under Brazilian environmental legislation. The firm Santos e Paccini Ltda. – Fineplast contested a denial of an environmental […]
HP Opens First Printer Cartridge Recycling Facility in Latin America
Monday, February 9th, 2009HP has just raised the stakes in producer responsibility for printer cartridge manufacturers operating in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). HP and Lexmark already were ahead of other manufacturers in offering cartridge recovery programs in the region. HP has now gone one step further — it just opened Latin America’s first printer recycling center […]
Wal-Mart to Reduce Phosphates in Detergents, Promote Sustainable Packaging in Americas / Compromiso de Wal-Mart reducir fosfatos en detergente, promover envase más sustentables en las Américas
Monday, January 26th, 2009From Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart Americas Aims to Reduce Detergent Phosphates 70% Company makes commitment to more sustainable packaging in the region Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. committed today to reduce phosphates in laundry and dish detergents in the Americas region by 70 percent by 2011. Wal-Mart also announced plans to accelerate its drive toward more sustainable packaging in […]
Some Eye-Opening Graphics on GHG Emissions & Carbon Credits
Sunday, January 4th, 2009There’s a wonderful resource for graphics related to environmental issues run by the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) GRID-Arendal center in Norway. I started browsing it regularly for their maps, but have found their graphical depictions of tough issues to be quite useful. Recently I came across several regarding climate change that I thought I’d share […]
Brazilian Resistance to Beer in PET Bottles
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008Brazilian brewers wanting to market their beers in PET bottles are not having a good year. First a court ruling that such bottles pose a significant risk to the environment, and therefore require environmental impact studies and licensing. Then a state ban on pigmented PET, and now a looming state ban on PET bottles for […]