Chapter 107 Question 096

Why is aluminum can recycling higher in Brazil than in the US? (Ruiz Fernando, Facie Brillin) Consumers in eleven U.S. states pay deposits of five cents or more for every aluminum can, and public service agencies routinely urge them to recycle them.To get their deposit back, consumers must return the cans to the nearest recycling center.Like everywhere else, most major convenience stores recycle cans.Yet of the 70 billion aluminum cans sold in the United States each year, only a little more than half are recycled.Most are simply disposed of as garbage.On the contrary, there is no deposit for cans sold in Brazil, and there are no convenient recycling centers. The Brazilian government has not publicized through public institutions to urge consumers to recycle cans.Ninety percent of the aluminum cans sold each year in Brazil are recycled.Why is Brazil's recycling rate higher than that of the United States?

Although Brazil has no bond system or convenient recycling centers, aluminum cans can be sold to processing plants, where they are melted down and sold as recycled aluminum.Since the average income of Brazilians is less than 20% of that of Americans, extreme poverty is common. There are about 200,000 people in Brazil who rely on collecting cans as their main means of livelihood. On the contrary, many Americans feel that it is not worthwhile to spend time queuing up at the recycling center to get the deposit, so most of their used cans are sent directly to the garbage incineration plant.According to container recycling organizations, in the past two decades, a total of 11 million tons of soda cans have been thrown away, with a value of 12 billion US dollars.

Although the deposit system did not increase the recycling rate of cans, it still had a positive effect: the aluminum cans thrown in public places will be picked up immediately by waste pickers.Unlike Brazil, American waste pickers rarely go to waste disposal plants to find cans, because doing so is illegal in many places.