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Loading ...Public Ministry Can Investigate
Saturday, March 14th, 2009Synopsis in English: Brazil’s Supreme Court has confirmed that under the 1988 Constitution, the Public Ministry has the power to conduct criminal investigations. The power had been challenged through a direct action of unconstitutionality (ação direta de inconstitucionalidade – ADIN). Desde o Ministério Público (MP) do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul: Ministério Público pode […]
Public Ministry Opens Inquiry into Marketing of Breakfast Cereals
Thursday, February 12th, 2009Based on filings submitted by the Alana Institute, the consumer group PROTESTE and the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), the Public Ministry (PM) of the State of São Paulo has opened an investigation into the marketing practices of Nestle and Kellogs regarding their breakfast cereals. Alana and PROTESTE tested 18 breakfast cereals of three […]
Recycling Used Motor Oil Packaging in Brazil
Thursday, December 25th, 2008In past posts I’ve discussed how recovery of used motor oil is still in its early stages in Latin American nations such as Brazil and Colombia. But that’s only part of the waste problem generated by the lubricants we use in motor vehicles. There’s also the packaging that the new motor oil comes in, the […]
Paraná Ratches Up Pressure on Packaging
Monday, November 3rd, 2008I’ve discussed several times here in The Temas Blog the carrot-and-stick approach the environmental authorities of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná (PR) take on different post-consumer waste streams, including electronics, glass packaging, long-neck beer bottles, Tetra Pak aseptic packaging, fluorescent lamps and pesticide packaging. You might notice that most of these categories are packaging […]
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 […]
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 […]
Please Tell Me This Will Not Stand!
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Evidently the Public Ministry (MP) of the State of Rio de Janeiro (RJ) petitioned for and received on Tuesday 03 July a judge’s order to suspend Rio’s portion of Saturday’s global Live Earth concert. The prosecutor who filed the motion says that she is acting on behalf of residents along Copacabana Beach, where the concert […]
More Dumps Than Municipalities / Mais Lixões que Municípios
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007I came across this tidbit during my eternal quest for information/data on waste in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). [Yes, yes garbologists are strange that way.] It seems that authorities in the northeastern state of Bahia have determined that there 438 trash dumps in the state, even though there are only 417 municipalities, yet […]
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 […]
Consumer Protection in LAC III – Consumer Agencies in LAC
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007To make up for missing World Consumer Rights Day (March 15), I promised to give you a five-part overview of consumer protection in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In Part I, I looked at how consumer agencies and consumer NGOs in the region celebrated the Day. In Part II-A I examined how intergovernmental bodies […]