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    Trash Photos XIX: A Visit to Minas’ Center on Waste

    Thursday, June 25th, 2009

    Yesterday I visited an institution in Belo Horizonte (BH) that, to my knowledge, is unique in Brazil, if not the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).   The Minas Waste Reference Center (Centro Mineiro de Referência em Resíduos – CMRR) opened in 2007 with the mission to serve as the focal point in the […]

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    Trash Photos XVII: Color-Coded Selective Collection

    Monday, June 15th, 2009

    Today I interviewed someone in the University of São Paulo’s (USP) Public Health Faculty (FSP) (the lead author in a study about catadores, as a matter of fact) and I spotted this in the mini-park in front of the building. These days it’s not hard to find color-coded collection bins in Brazil, particularly in the […]

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    São Paulo Offers Packaging Bill for Public Comment

    Friday, May 22nd, 2009

    The 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 […]

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    Rio Gets Supermarkets to Become Recycling Centers

    Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

    The President of Rio de Janeiro’s State Environment Institute (INEA) just signed a “letter of intent” with the Association of Supermarkets of Rio de Janeiro State (ASSERJ) and the Federation of Cooperatives of Recyclable Material Collectors (Febracom) to install selective collection centers in all the state’s supermarkets. The centers will allow consumers to return plastic […]

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    More Argentine WEEE Proposals

    Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

    And the momentum for regulating e-waste keeps on building in Argentina… This week saw two bills proposed in Argentina on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or “e-waste” or “e-scrap”) this week, one at the provincial level and the other at the federal. At the federal level, a bill was introduced in the national congress […]

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    Paraná Looks at Generating Employment from Waste

    Thursday, March 19th, 2009

    I wish all states did this. The Environment Secretariat (SEMA) of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná met on Tuesday and Wednesday (17-18 March) with the environment authorities of 70 municipalities in the North and North Pioneer regions of the state, and today and tomorrow will meet with municipal officials from the rest of the […]

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    Brazil to Invest R$220 mil. in Recycling / Brasil vai investir R$220 milhões em reciclagem

    Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

    At a meeting for new mayors held this morning in Brasilia, representatives of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Socioeconomic Inclusion for Catadores (catadores is what waste pickers are known as in Brazil) that federal government investments in various recycling, selective collection and municipal waste management training projects will exceed R$ 220 million in 2009 (about US$95.6 […]

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    Minas’ New State Waste Law Features Take-Back

    Sunday, January 18th, 2009

    Last 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 […]

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    Minas Trumpets Its Waste Policy Achievements

    Saturday, December 27th, 2008

    Minas 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 […]

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    A Green Report Card for São Paulo’s Cities

    Thursday, November 27th, 2008

    Yesterday São Paulo state (SP) Secretary for the Environment, Xico Graziano, revealed the environmental rankings of the state’s municipalities and rewarded the mayors of cities with the highest grades. This quasi “green report card” and honor roll is a fruit of the state’s “Green Municipality” (Município Verde) Program, one of the governor’s “21 strategic environmental […]

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