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    Mexico City’s Sustainable Housing Units Program

    Thursday, January 15th, 2009

    Mexico’s Federal District (DF) — essentially Mexico City and its environs, where a large percentage of Mexico’s population resides — has launched a Sustainable Housing Units Program.  The program will finance the installation of solar water heaters in housing, not only to reduce residential electricity and gas consumption (and thus homeowner’s utility bills by as […]

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    McDonald’s Claims First “Ecological Restaurant” in Latin America

    Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

    McDonald’s just inaugurated what it claims to be the first “ecological restaurant” in Latin America — well, at least, the first one of their chain, anyway.  Take a look at why McDonald’s calls this an ecological restaurant and see if you agree: Arcos Dourados (“Golden Arches”), the company that manages the franchise network of McDonald’s […]

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    Colombia Gets Producer Responsibility Agreement for End-of-Life Lighting

    Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

    Colombia’s Environment Ministry (MAVDT) has signed a convenant with nine of the most important lamp manufacturers and importers — Osram, Philips, GE, Havells Sylvania Colombia, Carrefour, Greenlight, Mecanelectro, Sodimac Colombia — to take charge of electrical and electronic lighting at the end of their product life.  The companies agree to: Advance efforts to design and […]

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    Getting Tough About Lamp Take-Back

    Saturday, August 9th, 2008

    Brazil [as have several other Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) nations] has been wrestling with the issue of proper disposal of fluorescent lamps for some time now. This becomes quite apparent just by browsing the Temas download list of laws and regulations regarding batteries and lamps — there are numerous lamp entries for Brazil, and […]

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    A Solid Waste Plan for Costa Rica

    Friday, July 18th, 2008

    Recently Costa Rica was presented its long-awaited Solid Waste Plan (PRESOL) by the entities belonging to the Inter-Institutional Platform of the Competitiveness and Environment Program (CYMA): the Health Ministry (MinSalud), the Planning Ministry (Mideplan), the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), the Institute for Municipal Development and Advice (Instituto de Fomento y Asesoria Municipal – […]

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    Promoting Renewable Energy in Costa Rica

    Thursday, July 10th, 2008

    A bill has been introduced in Costa Rica’s national assembly by Deputy José Merino del Río that aims at promoting a faster switch to renewable energy sources by exempting from taxes the following items: Solar water heaters for all uses whose efficiency has been certified by an accredited laboratory; Storage tanks for thermosyphon solar water […]

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    Mato Grosso’s E-Waste Law / A Lei de Mato Grosso Sobre E-lixo

    Sunday, June 1st, 2008

    Last month, while The Temas Blog was still on hiatus, the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso (MT) became the first Latin American jurisdiction to pass a specific law on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), or “technological trash” (lixo tecnológico) as Brazilians tend to call it.*  The new law creates a take-back regime and […]

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    Tetra-Pak Chooses to Deal

    Thursday, July 26th, 2007

    Synopsis 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 […]

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