Lixo e reciclagem

Um case real é o trabalho que fizemos em uma creche em São Cristovão, Solar Bezerra de Menezes, que atende mais de 200 meninas carentes, por meio da parceria com a Onda Solidária. Eles sempre desejaram ter um projeto de Educação Ambiental, mas tinham dificuldades de engajar os educadores em atividades e criar projetos. Passamos um ano no espaço realizando encontros quinzenais com as educadoras e semanais com as crianças (aulas extracurriculares). Implantamos uma horta, minhocário, integramos a horta ao projeto deles de alimentação saudável, falamos sobre reciclagem e separação do lixo. Promovemos festas de sustentabilidade, passeios em parques da região e a maior parte das aulas com as crianças era na praça em frente ao Solar. As crianças passaram a conhecer e se apaixonar por seu lugar na natureza, mudaram hábitos e tornaram-se menos violentas (são de comunidades). O projeto fez a diferença porque sensibilizou os educadores, a coordenação e permitiu que as ideias continuassem mesmo depois que tinhamos saído. Os educadores sabem hoje onde buscar informações e desmitificaram a ideia da tal "sustentabilidade", passando a encontrar sentido para seus projetos nas boas lembranças que tinham da infância na natureza e na importância do amor pela vida que passaram a compartilhar com seus alunos e com toda a comunidade escolar. Essas ações foram marcantes e inesquecíveis e seus passos podem ser replicados com facilidade, adaptando-se às realidades únicas e às necessidades específicas de cada escola e região.

In some of our properties thousands of pounds of usable food is thrown away on a regular basis while simultaneously the surrounding communities suffer from hunger. For example, in some Middle Eastern countries it is customary to order sometimes over 100% more food than is needed for weddings or other large events. Hotels have usable food and food banks have networks of partners that can use the food, but no one is making the 'last mile' connection to enable the transfer. Through our pilot we are leveraging our expertise in food and beverage operations and our partners' expertise in food handling, collection, and distribution to develop tools and resources to support donation on a larger scale. First we are working to understand the problem and why it isn't happening organically. Next we will focus on making individual connections and facilitating donations at a local level to identify best practices. Finally, we will develop the necessary tools to scale to our broader portfolio. We rely heavily on the expertise of our partner organizations and their affiliates to co-create and guide the development of our solution and truly consider this a partnership that leverages the expertise of the public and private sector to address a societal issue.

Ceiba maximizes project returns by matching feedstocks with appropriate bioenergy technologies in developing economies with high energy consumption metrics, making smaller scale bioenergy an accessible enterprise. The bioenergy value chain begins with energy agriculture and tropical agroforestry systems which provide the feedstocks for bioenergy projects with technologies such as gasification and pyrolysis. Ceiba’s energy agriculture team grows and manages fast-growing oil crops, biomass crops and timbers to provide a continuous feedstock supply -- often in conjunction with other existing agriculture or forestry waste -- increasing project reliability and viability. Our agronomists and foresters plan and implement strategies with fast-growing oil and biomass crops, bamboo and precious hardwoods for oil, timber and biomass production. We hire local community members in all aspects of our operations, and offer employees the opportunity for training and upward mobility within the company. These strategies underpin bioenergy project stability, maximize land productivity and asset value with multiple timescale revenue streams. Ceiba monetizes this value, with a team well-versed in feedstock contract negotiation, PPA acquisition, project finance, as well as corporate structuring -- assuring successful implementation. We help to green and stabilize the grid, reducing transmission and transport losses of energy. Our production systems support more biodiversity than competing uses (eg cattle), and can boost local production of new crops, increasing agroecosystem diversity.

An example of how my venture will make an impact is by having a system that event planners and organizers would follow to minimize waste at their events. These could be student, staff, or parent events. This would include a set of event planning guidelines for event planners, a pre-designed waste management system, and a small school library of reusable event materials. The guidelines would include a flow chart style section, helping organizers pick the best products to buy, the dos and don'ts of event planning, a list of materials in the school event material library, and will go through all the steps of "green" event planning. The waste management system would have soft plastics and hard plastics bins, a food scraps/compostables bin, and a smaller garbage bin, manned by a volunteer instructing which items go into which bin, in order to maintain clean waste streams.

The small materials library would develop over time, but to start with, it would have around fifty sets of dinnerware, tablecloths, and other common materials needed at events, such as biodegradable garbage bags. If a school was hosting a particularly large event, it could ask to borrow materials from other schools. Event planners would be able draw upon all these resources when planning and executing their events. Having these resources at hand will greatly decrease waste produced at events, help maintain clean waste streams, and will also reduce costs.

The model has taken into account all the different segments of society that need to come together for this to succeed. We already have identified the flakerbots and refilbots and are in the process of deploying them through the people who will be involved in the pilot project. We have built low cost 3d printers that have been tested in the Indian market.

A manufacturer dyes a fabric lot the wrong colour. A film production wraps up their work and has bolts and bolts of fabric they don’t need. Whatever the case, unused fabric is looking for a home—and that home is usually the landfill.

That’s where Our Social Fabric comes in. We ask for the unused excess fabric, collect it, and store it. Once a month, we open our doors and sell it at reasonable rates to the creators in our community, connecting them with raw materials they would never otherwise pick up. The funds go to collecting and recycling more fabric.

Act NOW! Performance Art Festival will set an example for other festivals in Vancouver to run with less waste, we'll be lightening our carbon footprint, will explore and share with other artists how they can be kinder to the planet when working on their art.

1. Youth members of slum are initiated to joint liability groups (JLGs) that are bank linked and oriented with the trade.
2. Capacity building and technology transfer for JLGs to set up micro recycling units for paper mache and paper molding based on low cost green engineering.
3. The urban paper waste segregated at source in public and corporate sectors get donated to JLGs working as producer’s organizations of microutility household products for daily usage made out of disposable paper waste.
4. Mainstream these producers organization through financial inclusion, state of the art marketing strategy and communication skill.
5. E-sensitization for urban stakeholders to promote the trade with cyber tools. Calling for corporate partnership through CSR & in-house sales of products.
6. Place based event management for exhibition cum sale, silent auction & web-auction for selling products.
7. Revenue return is used as working capital, microinsurance and profit share showing fare break-even.

Using this kind of brick brought a lot of new features we didn’t really expected when we first sketched the idea:
- it uses any plastic that can be recycled. The PET is around 50 % rate, but the other plastics are all around 8-9 % rate of recycling.
- in our prototype we use other industrial waste which is very hard to recycle.
Third of all It comes for in a market where the highest demand is for brick pavement.
- the density is aprox 3 times less than normal cement brick, which reduces at least 3 times the traffic needed to deliver to clients
- this is also come in handy in bringing new design that allows further reduction in CO2 and labor costs for the final client because it take 70 % less resources to install (time and energy). Basically the whole solution may come a minimum 50 % less than any other traditional system, but has a lifetime durability.
- Also, the design eliminate the weeds that usually grow between traditional cement bricks.
- The manufacturing process is not so elaborate, so a new factory can be built in record time anywhere in the world close to a plastic recycling center.
We intend to produce also our own recycling unit to our specific needs to be able to cut further more the cost of the product and reasearch new products.
- I’ve seen constructions stores that have Carbon footprint bar for each of their pavement bricks. This means the market has already did the first steps towards green products, so I think now is the right time to step in.

Nossa primeira experiência foi um curso de camareiras. As mulheres foram selecionadas pelo Centro de Referência em Assistência Social de Ouro Preto.
O curso teve 100 horas de capacitação: 60h em serviços de camareiras, 20h de Educação Ambiental e 20h de Psicologia Organizacional com profissional devidamente habilitado.Além de aulas teóricas, o curso oferecia as mulheres visitas técnicas para conhecerem o ambiente de trabalho.
O curso foi oferecido ainda por 4 vezes e nosso reconhecimento veio por meio dos gerentes dos hotéis, que toda vez que necessitam de uma profissional para o seu quadro de funcionários entram em contato com a Cátedra Amde.

A young female expresses her personal identity and creativity through fashion. But she is also influenced by marketing and the media and feels compelled to stay on top of the latest trends to fit in. She shops at low cost, chain retailers weekly and buys more than she needs. She finds herself replacing worn out or out-of-style garments often, and the clothing piles up.

After a trusted friend shares ‘My Garment’ on Facebook she is intrigued. An incentive entices her to use the tool and share it with friends. After learning about the pair of jeans she is wearing, such as how much water is used to grow the cotton, the pesticides that were used on the cotton crops, the low wages of the garment workers, and how far they travelled before she purchased them, she is aware of the bigger picture.

She now makes the connection between how her individual consumer choices impact ecological and social systems globally. She then learns that it can be easy and fun to make a difference and help support sustainable fashion. She decides to buy less, learns to look for versatile & quality garments, repairs & restyles existing pieces and supports local fashion designers. She now washes her clothing in cold water, hangs them to dry, and donates any used pieces to charity. She uses the Smartphone app to direct her to local secondhand and vintage stores, boutiques carrying sustainable fashion, community clothing swaps, tailors and sewing workshops. Through this fun lifestyle switch she has also inspired her family and friends to follow suit, and together they are making a difference!

Networking: Presently a business selling a sustainable product or service must persuade the client on the merits of sustainability while the marketplace foremost reflects transactions on price first, then merit – sustainability or other ‘quality’ issues. The GCCBC provides the desired opportunity to conduct trade with an ‘educated’ buyer (fellow member) who will buy at a competitive price after evaluating comparative merits

Education: The GCCBC will conduct seminars and classes on how to successfully use sustainable business practices while making a profit and cutting down on cost. Our goal is to also encourage businesses that are already practicing sustainable business practices to help and educate other businesses that are just starting to utilize them. The GCCBC will be a space for peers to discuss among themselves and learn from each other the, “How To”, of sustainability in BC.

Idea repository: GCCBC is a clearing house for sustainable business practices enabling all commerce (and government) a ‘one stop shop’ for conducting business with sustainability objectives. GCCBC supports and promotes commerce and sustainability in all its forms.

Cranbrook, BC is somewhat unique in that our sewage treatment already consists of innovative green technology at the end of its cycle. However the sewage settling ponds which are at the front end of treatment are located a few hundred meters away from commercially owned greenhouses. These greenhouses remain empty in winter and are used solely for ornamental nursery crops in spring and summer. This is an opportunity waiting to happen. Adjacent to the City Settling Ponds is a large area of undeveloped City property which could be used for a City initiated industry. (see schematic drawing)

My idea consists of extracting some of the heat from the sewage settling ponds and transferring it a short distance to use for growing winter crops under glass. Cranbrook is the sunniest city in BC and has never tapped into this resource. By also capturing solar energy, the greenhouses could receive extra hours of light for optimum growing conditions in winter.

If the commercially owned greenhouses could be used on a trial basis it might be possible to eventually develop a winter food production facility on the adjacent City property which would create employment and help to sustain the city and surrounding area’s food supply.

If the city owned its own greenhouses on its own property, the same greenhouse, food production facility could also be used year round for more hot weather crops in summer.

All that remains between the idea and the actual working system is a feasibility study which potentially could be funded through this competition.