COUNTRY REPORT
73recyclinginternational.com | May/June | 2024
Brazil’s recycling best
is yet to come
According to data from the
International Solid Waste Association,
Brazil’s 4% recycling rate is much
lower than that in countries with a
similar income range and economic
development such as Chile,
Argentina, South Africa and Turkey,
which recycle around 16% of their
waste.
Carlos Silva Filho, president of the
Brazilian Association of Public Cleaning
and Special Waste Companies
(Abrelpe) says: ‘We are four times less
than these countries. We have to accel-
erate. In relation to developed coun-
tries, the road ahead is even longer. In
Germany, for example, the recycling
rate reaches 67%. Brazil is 20 years
behind these countries.’
Although Brazil has great potential to
increase recycling, Abrelpe believes
several factors keep the rates stag-
nant, starting with a lack of consumer
awareness and involvement in the
separation and selective disposal of
waste. New infrastructure for the
industry is also essential, it insists.
LITTLE SUPPORT
‘There is a lack of units for separate
disposal and selective collection,’
Silva Filho explains. ‘There is a lack of
screening units and, finally, I would
say that there is a lack of a tax struc-
ture to allow this recyclable material
to be attractive to the industry.’
Inadequate recycling generates a sig-
nificant economic loss for the country.
A recent survey carried out for
Abrelpe shows that sending recycla-
bles to landfills leads to a loss of R$14
billion (EUR 2.6 billion) annually,
which could be used to generate rev-
enue and income for those working in
the sector.
‘In addition, the scrap would no lon-
ger go to landfill and would not cause
the environmental problems that
landfills pose,’ Silva Filho says.
Even so, as part of the existing
National Solid Waste Plan 2022
(Planares), Brazil is looking to increase
its recycling rate from to 48% by 2040
and close all existing landfills. Under
the plan, Brazil will recycle more than
100 000 tonnes of urban solid waste
per day by 2040, almost half of that
generated in the country today.
Implementation of these plans, how-
ever, faces serious difficulties because
of the almost 3 000 landfills operating
in Brazil and data showing that 40%
of the waste is currently sent to an
inappropriate site.
Abrelpe’s data indicates that 26% of
Brazilian cities have no waste collec-
tion or recycling initiatives. Only the
southern and south-eastern regions
have collection and recycling initia-
tives in more than 90% of their munic-
ipalities.
SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
Environmental manager Telines
Basílio, a founder of Coopercaps, one
of Brazil largest waste collection
cooperatives based in São Paulo,
agrees that more active development
of the sector is prevented by existing
KADERKOP
??
Workers at a plastics recycling center in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia.
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