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Recyclables for Electricity Program Catches On
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008When the 10 winners for 2008 of the biennial World Business and Development Awards were announced a few weeks back, the Spanish energy conglomerate Endesa was one of the recipients for a program its subsidiaries run in two Brazilian states. The program helps people pay for their power bills while promoting recycling. While an interesting [...]
First Destination for UNEP’s Green Passport Program: Brazil
Monday, October 13th, 2008The international community is about to launch a “Green Passport” program to promote “sustainable holidays,” and guess where the concept is being field tested first: a small colonial era town in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro (RJ) state, Paraty.
The Green Passport is a project of the International Task Force on Sustainable Tourism Development (ITF-STD) created under [...]
Brazilian States Publicize Consumer Complaints
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008In September the 21 Brazilian state consumer agencies (known in Brazil as “Procons”) belonging to the National System of Consumer Defense Information (Sistema Nacional de Informações de Defesa do Consumidor - SINDEC) opened (mostly on the internet) their registries of consumer complaints, including their rankings of which firms were the subject of the greatest number [...]
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 [...]
São Paulo Launches Ambitious Research Program on Climate Change / São Paulo Lança Programa de Pesquisa sobre Mudanças Climáticas
Monday, September 15th, 2008The São Paulo State Research Foundation (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo - FAPESP) has launched its own R$100 million, 10-year research program on climate change. The new Research Program on Global Climate Change (Programa FAPESP de Pesquisa sobre Mudanças Climáticas Globais - PFPMCG) will have three main components:
an “observational component” [...]
Promoting Tourism in Brazil’s National Parks
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008Synopsis in English: Environment Minister Carlos Minc recently announced a package of R$50 million to stimulate ecotourism in six federal conservation units (unidades de conservação federais - UCFs) with a view to investing in infrastructure (primarily visitor centers, belvederes and guided trails) and contracting concessions for visitors services (restaurants, guides, etc.). Adventure tourism will also [...]
Rio Bans Pigmented PET Packaging
Thursday, August 28th, 2008Last month something a bit astonishing happened quietly in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. The state Governor, Sérgio Cabral, signed into law a very short bill. The new Law outlaws the manufacture or sale in the state of pigmented PET packaging.
The rationale? Such packaging is not accepted for recycling by either waste-pickers (catadores) [...]
Update: Among the World’s Top PET Recyclers
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008Who was #2 in PET recycling in 2006 (the last year for which there are comparable figures among nations)?
Did you answer Brazil?
In 2006 Brazil recycled 180 kilotons (Kt), representing about 51.3% of the PET sold in the country during that year. This means that Brazil recycles at double the rate that the US does, and [...]
A Dengue Vaccine by December?
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008During the 60th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência- SBPC) last month held in Campinas, São Paulo, it was announced that Brazil probably will go to market first with a vaccine against dengue and that they may start producing it as early as [...]
Finding Eco-Diagnoses for LAC
Friday, June 20th, 2008In a prior post on the Temas library of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) legal texts for download, I promised to highlight other changes and additions to the updated site.
The biggest addition to the site has been the Temas Tools Section, a collection of references and tools that help in understanding, shaping and managing policy [...]
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