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Loading ...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 […]
Mexico City Formally Implements Its Waste Law…Finally!
Friday, October 10th, 2008This week Mexico’s Federal District (DF) — the zone encompassing Mexico City and its environs — published the implementing regulation for its 2003 Waste Law — five years later than called for by the Law. Although the lack of an implementing does not stop a law from being applied and programs being launched (and the […]
Paraná Takes Aim on New Beer Packaging
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008First aseptic cartons, then long-necked beer bottles, now one-liter glass beer bottles. Hmmm, do you think maybe Paraná environment officials are focused on packaging waste issues? Earlier this month Paraná’s Environment Secretary, Rasca Rodrigues, again used the press to get a company to the negotiating table. He publicly attacked the new one-liter beer bottle — […]
Update on Paraná Showdown with Long-Neck Beer Bottles
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008Synopsis in English: For those of you curious about the outcome of that ultimatum that environment officials in Paraná gave to producers and distributors of long-neck beer bottles to take responsibility for their wastes or else, only two distributors (out of the expected five) and a representative of the glass manufacturers industry association (instead of […]
Bahia to Adopt Paraná’s Zero Waste Program Model
Saturday, October 13th, 2007I’ve mentioned here several times the innovative Zero Waste Program (Programa Desperdício Zero) of the southern Brazilian state Paraná, such as how it applies to glass recycling, pesticide packaging, aseptic packaging and finding new ways to reuse/recycle plastic (PET) bottles (such as building solar water heaters). At some point I should do a comprehensive post […]
More Glass Packaging Recovery, Less Piracy?
Sunday, October 7th, 2007When discussing recovery/recycling among packaging materials in Brazil, glass sometimes suffers by comparison. Brazil is a world leader in recycling PET and aluminum cans, and high among recyclers of corrugated cardboard (77%). Brazil’s 45% annual recycling rate for glass packaging is better than the glass packaging rate for the US (but then again, the US […]
Software to Calculate Gains from Recycling / Software para calcular los beneficios de reciclar
Thursday, September 20th, 2007Municipalities have been known to spend thousands of dollars to consultants to provide them with an assessment of the economic and environmental viability of creating and implementing a municipal recycling program. Now several Brazilian professors have created a software package that they claim will do all that with just a few clicks of a computer […]
Tetra-Pak Chooses to Deal
Thursday, July 26th, 2007Synopsis 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 […]
It Does Indeed Add Up…
Monday, March 12th, 2007Sometimes you have step back from all the “big” and sensational stories out there and spotlight the modest successes that, if duplicated elsewhere and all such efforts were added together, would be a major story indeed. I just ran across this press release from a mid-sized city (pop. 102,000) in the southern Brazilian state of […]
Jalisco Gets a Waste Law
Monday, February 26th, 2007The Mexican state of Jalisco (JL) just published in its official gazette the text of its recently passed Law on the Integrated Management of Wastes. Jalisco joins the Federal District (DF) and the states of Colima, Guanajuato, Querétaro and Veracruz in adopting its own waste law to supplement the federal Law for the Prevention and […]