From Beaches To Streets Everyone Recycles Aluminum

BRAZIL

Beaches, Streets Recycle Aluminum

PlanetArk, BRAZIL

10th May 2006

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - From Brazil's beaches to city streets and squares, men, women and children fill plastic sacks with empty drink cans.

Last year 96.2 percent of the aluminum beverage cans sold in Latin America's biggest country were recycled, up from 95.7 percent in 2004, making it the world's top voluntary can recycler for the fifth successive year.

"The big challenge now is to maintain this level of recycling. That would be a great achievement," Renault Castro, executive director of the Brazilian Association of Highly Recyclable Cans (ABRALATAS), told Reuters.

In a phone interview from Brasilia, he said it was increasingly difficult to raise the recycling ration because some cans are used for handicrafts and some are lost or irretrievable.

The association said that Brazil reused 127,600 tonnes of aluminum cans in 2005 -- equivalent to 9.4 billion cans during the year or 26 million cans a day.

Brazil beat countries with strict recycling legislation such as Denmark, Norway and Switzerland and was far ahead of the United States in percentage terms.

Castro said that one key factor was the fast growing support of Brazil's middle class.

Between 2000-2005, participation of private condominiums and clubs in the collection of cans rose to 24 percent from 10 percent. "People are becoming more aware," Castro said, referring to environmental and energy issues. "They also see it as an extra source of revenue."

Recycling cans is 95 percent more energy efficient than producing them from bauxite raw material. Recycling saved 1,800 GWh hour in 2005, enough energy to supply a city of 1 million people, such as Dallas, Texas, for a year.

Organizers of pop concerts now regard collection of empty drinks cans as a revenue earner and are negotiating collection rights, Castro said, adding that restaurant chains and bars also see used cans as a money spinner.

But cooperatives and collectors' associations remain the most important source, accounting for 52 percent of all cans gathered, up from 43 percent in 2000.

"Price is the main incentive for can collectors," Castro said, saying that the current rate is 3.30 reais per kilo - equivalent to 70 cans.

An estimated 160,000 people collect old cans and can earn more than the minimum monthly wage of 360 reais.

Story by Peter Blackburn
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE