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  • Recyclables for Electricity Program Catches On

    Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

    When 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 […]

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    Puerto Rico Proposes Amending Its Waste Reduction/Recycling Regulation

    Monday, November 17th, 2008

    Puerto Rico’s Solid Waste Authority (Autoridad de Desperdicios Sólidos – ADS) has published for 30-day public comment its proposals to amend its Regulation for the Reduction, Re-use and Recycling of Solid Wastes in Puerto Rico.  The Regulation implemented a 1992 law, Law 70, which among other things required all business entities to practice recycling and to […]

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    Trinidad & Tobago Opts for Systematic Recycling

    Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

    In the 2009 Budget Statement presented Monday by Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheria to the parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, the government announced that (surprise! surprise!) it is finally abandoning the Environment Management Authority’s (EMA) ten year-old proposal for a law creating a beverage container deposit-return system, and will instead is opting for a comprehensive waste […]

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    Apoio de R$22.9 milhões para cooperativas de catadores

    Monday, October 15th, 2007

    Synopsis in English: Brazilian President Lula announced on 01 October the first 24 financial lines to be awarded by the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) to cooperatives of unofficial waste sorters/ recyclers known in Brazil as catadores. The catador cooperatives are generally composed of the very poor that live off of the recyclables […]

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    Inside the “Casa do Bem”

    Monday, October 8th, 2007

    If 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. […]

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    Toward a National Waste Exchange for Brazil

    Thursday, October 4th, 2007

    Recently Brazil's National Confederation of Industry (CNI) pulled together a meeting in Curitiba, Paraná (PR) of officials from Brazil's existing 12 state waste exchanges operated by state industry associations.  Also attending were industry representatives from Argentina, Paraguay and Portugal.  The focus of discussion: a CNI proposal to link the exchanges electronically and create a de […]

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    It Does Indeed Add Up…

    Monday, March 12th, 2007

    Sometimes 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 […]

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    Cans and Bottles for Electricity

    Monday, January 22nd, 2007

    I just read a fascinating article in an online regional news service in Brazil. “Material reciclável pode ser trocado por desconto na fatura de energia” in yesterday’s edition of RMT Online discusses an innovative approach to encouraging people to recycling used packaging. I’ve heard of many experiments in Brazil and elsewhere to encourage people, especially […]

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    Trash Photos X: A Stunning Christmas Tree Made with Recyclables

    Monday, December 11th, 2006

    Hope you are not yet tired of pictures of the creative way people are taking everyday used recyclable material and turning them into Christmas trees and decorations. I just found this one, and it’s stunning! The 64-year old Brazilian grandmother who decorated this tree did so with used wrapping paper, yogurt cups, PET bottles and […]

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