ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Using Garbage to Fight Poverty and Pollution

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 22 1999 (IPS) - Garbage recycling is running at its peak in Brazil and is benefiting the environment, the economy, and especially a population living in extreme poverty, which has now found a clean source of income.

Nearly 200,000 people collect various waste materials while putting up with unhealthy conditions in the streets and garbage dumps of the large cities, according to estimates of the Recycling Enterprise Pact (Compromiso Empresarial para el Reciclaje – CEMPRE), an association of companies that recycle the collected material.

Brazil is already one of the world’s leaders in aluminium recycling, especially cans, which are increasingly replacing glass for beer and soft drink containers. Recycled aluminium has reached 61 percent of the total volume used in container production, according to CEMPRE.

In addition to the army of under-employed people collecting waste in the streets, recycling companies and environmental organisations have taken an interest, launching campaigns that offer, for example, computers to schools whose students have collected a certain number of cans.

In addition to aluminium, there has been an increase in PET recycling, a plastic substitute for glass containers. In addition to beverages, PET plastic is used as a container for oils and chemical products.

However, PET use has expanded sharply in Brazil over the last 10 years, creating a serious environmental problem. The plastic resin has a decomposition rate of 100 years.

However, that estimate has not yet been verified by observation because the material was created less than 50 years ago, and PET recycling is an even more recent occurrence.

Brazil has not yet developed a network for public collection of PET as it has for aluminium cans and paper.

Originally, the PET market organised around industry sales to millions of consumers, without planning for disposal of the material. Now the used material is flooding into the recycling plants, observed Vladimir Kudrjawzew, whose company converts PET into fibres for multiple industrial uses.

The recycling movement’s intensity was apparent last month at the national plastics fair held in Sao Paulo. La Krown, a recycling equipment factory, was surprised by the demand.

“We had more than 400 requests, far surpassing my most optimistic expectations,” said the factory’s director, Jose Carlos Froes.

The Brazilian Association of Plastic Container Manufacturers (ABEPET) has stimulated this trend by disseminating information about technology and successful business experiences.

Some companies produce household brooms, a few using rudimentary methods, simply by cutting bottles into strips. These brooms last 15 times longer than standard brooms. But small industries also convert recycled PET into delicate industrial fibres.

The eight major recycling companies reported last year that PET recycling had risen 33 percent compared to 1997, according to ABEPET.

In spite of this growth, Brazil still loses almost 3,000 million dollars per year in non-utilised recycling opportunities, concluded Sabetai Calderoni in an economics doctoral thesis for the University of Sao Paulo.

The private sector “is not able to organise itself” to a desirable level for this activity, says the economist. He also indicated that if the government could promote and plan waste reutilisation, they would see important savings in energy and water resources, as well as a reduction in pollution.

The government seems to have reached the same conclusion and is preparing to put its Brazilian Recycling Plan into action, providing industry with financial and credit incentives.

One measure to be taken is obvious. Until now, plastic recycling has had a 12 percent industrial tax, while the original plastic resin pays only 10 percent, a fact that discourages the use of recycled material, pointed out Alfredo Sete, executive director of ABEPET.

The programme will also encourage the formation of waste collection co-operatives so the multitude of people working in this area can escape unemployment and poverty.

In Curitiba, the Brazilian city with the longest and largest recycling experience, selective collection of garbage has helped make the city one of the cleanest state capitals.

Last year the city recycled 16 percent of its residential garbage, nearing the 25 percent mark reached by Germany. Curitiba recycling created 20,000 jobs, directly and indirectly, including 4,000 individual recyclers.

The municipality pays the workers with baskets of food, public transportation fares and other benefits.