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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. […]
More Brazilian Cities Move to Recycle C&D Waste
Thursday, September 27th, 2007Last December I blogged about a new mayoral decree in South America’s largest city, São Paulo, that required the use of recycled civil construction and demolition (C&D) wastes in some city projects (primarily paving). Not to be outdone, Beto Richa, the mayor of what many consider to be South America’s “greenest” metropolis, Curitiba (the capital […]
Rioluz Saves R$4 mil./yr by Reuse/Recycling
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007Rioluz, the company linked to Rio de Janeiro’s municipal administration that is responsible for the some 390,000 public lights in the city, tries to reuse/recycle everything. It claims that in the process it saves the city about R$4 million (around US$2.14 million at current exchange rates) every year. The reuse/recycling referred to here is the […]
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 […]
Greening the IDB / A Verdecer el BID
Saturday, April 21st, 2007From the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB): Calling for eco-efficiency at the IDB In celebration of Earth Day, IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno will challenge IDB staff to participate in a Bank-wide greening campaign On the occasion of Earth Day (April 22), the Inter-American Development Bank renews its commitment to the protection of our environment, and […]
More Construction with PET Bottles
Tuesday, November 21st, 2006In a prior entry I introduced you to Brazilian experiments with constructing homes using PET bottles. Today I’ll introduce you to Andreas Froese, a man who not only did it first in Honduras, but has gone much beyond the experimental stages to actually build over a dozen homes and community centers made of PET bottles, […]