Sao Paolo Fire Brigade,

Military and Forestry Police,

The Labour and Employment Secretariat of San Paolo

VEGA and VEGA Institute (SUEZ - SITA Brazil)

Instituto Recicle Milhoes de Vidas

Promote and develop selective collection of recyclables through community based action and educate the people on the necessity and the benefits of recycling;

Reduce (through recycling) the volumes of waste that would have otherwise been sent to a landfill, avoiding related pollution;

Promote environmental awareness and social responsibility through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative, that ensures a win-win situation for all stakeholders.

Transform garbage into currency for the benefit of TUCCA (an NGO helping deprived children with brain cancer).

Avoid dumping of recyclables all over the city and avoidance of consequent pollution (water, air and soil);

Decrease of the tons of waste that would otherwise have been sent to final deposit (landfill);

Job generation: employment and training of 90 unemployed people in partnership with the Labour and Employment Secretariat (State Government of San Paulo);

Increase of environmental awareness of the inhabitants as well as their willingness to participate in a project with such visible positive impacts;

Profits redistributed to TUCCA in the form of a grant of 15.150 USD (40.983 Rs, from February to December 2001).

The Firefight Brigade of San Paulo State allocated space in 30 stations for the installation of specific waste skips. The NGO " Instituto Recicle Milhoes de Vidas" set up the environmental awareness programme, in coordination with the Labour Secretariat (90 people were trained and are employed as environmental educators). VEGA organizes the collection, the sorting and the sale of the waste collected. The income generated by this process is in turn donated to the Association of Children and Teenagers with Brain Tumour : TUCCA.

Because of its success the project will be expanded to the whole Metropolitan area of San Paolo and will involve more stakeholders (supermarkets) to increase the tons of recyclable collected.

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