Brazil has today 2,361 companies operating in the recycling sector, amongst recyclers, scrap dealers, cooperatives and associations. The majority of them (1,145) is concentrated in the Southeast region of Brazil, followed by the South (722), Northeast (301), Midwest (150) and North (43).
The main product recycled is plastic, processed by 577 of the 722 recycling companies. Following are the companies that operate with metal (60), paper (54) and long life packages (14). Glass, batteries and tires are recycled by another 15 companies.
These are the main results of the Recycling Map of Brazil, released yesterday September 29 by the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae) in southeastern Brazilian state Rio de Janeiro and the Entrepreneurial Commitment for Recycling (Cempre), non profit association dedicated to promoting recycling within the concept of integrated management of garbage.
The study, carried out by the market research company MaxiQuim, was presented during the seminar ‘The Ecoefficiency in the Business Sector’, at the Sebrae auditorium in Rio de Janeiro.
The research gives an up-to-date record of the cooperatives and companies that buy, sell and separate recyclable materials from north to south of country.
According to the manager for Environment and the Ecobusiness Nucleus at the Sebrae, Dolores Lustosa, the idea is to stimulate business in the sector bringing closer the great recycling factories and separation of small suppliers, such as cooperatives and associations of materials collectors.
Good part of the companies acting in the sector is small and micro sized, focus of the Sebrae’s actions. The great novelty in this study is the significant number of cooperatives and associations of collectors and recyclers (364), which demonstrates an increase in people seeking this sector, especially the people of lower education," analyses the executive director at the Cempre, André Vilhena. According to estimates of the NGO, the companies in this market generate 500,000 work posts.
According to Cempre, the country recycles about 10% of its urban solid residues (5.2 million metric tons per day, an average of 0.7 kg per inhabitant/day). The total aluminum cans recycled reached 95.7% of the total produced in 2004, while cardboard reached 79%.
Brazil recycled 49% of their total production of steel cans, 48% of PET, 46% of glass packagings and 39% of the tires produced in the period. The recycling of paper was of (33%), followed by the long life packages (22%) and the plastics (16.5%).
In spite of representing 60% of the total weight of urban solid residues produced in Brazil, only 1.5% of organic garbage (food and gardening leftovers) is composted, in other words, goes through the biological process called composting, through which the micro-organisms convert the organic part of the solid residues into a stable material like humus, known as composite.
Agência Sebrae