O-I Announces New Partnerships to Increase Glass Recycling in Brazil
O-I has established two new partnerships that increase post-consumer glass recycling, reduce consumer waste, and conserve resources in Brazil. The collaborations, with the Recicleiros Institute, a civil society organization, and Orizon, one of the country’s largest private landfill companies – support the glass maker’s ambitious goal of increasing cullet in glass containers.
The exclusive agreement with The Recicleiros Institute will recycle all post-consumer glass packaging processed in the Recicleiros Cidades Program’s current and future sorting units across Brazil. O-I expects to recover about 3,000 tons of glass in the project’s first year.
“We want to increase glass recycling in regions of the country where it was not yet feasible. By promoting the base of the chain and the sale of this material by cooperatives directly to the industry, we encourage the generation of jobs and income, as well as the reduction of the extraction of virgin raw material from the environment, the reduction in energy consumption and CO2 emissions,” said Alexandre Macário, manager of the Circular Economy area at O-I.
Orizon operates the Jaboatão dos Guararapes Ecopark in Pernambuco, the largest sorting operation in Latin America. The company manages 15 Ecoparks in the country, taking care of the waste generated by more than 40 million people in ten Brazilian states, corresponding to 20% percent of the population.
