Increasing Recycling Rates
541,000 tons of waste is generated every day in Latin America.* We’re helping recycle it.
By 2050, experts expect the already-high amount of waste generated daily in Latin America to increase by another 25 percent.* That’s why SC Johnson is taking action to help increase awareness of the importance of recycling and helping develop options for communities to recycle their waste.
In October 2021, we kicked off a partnership in Argentina with CEMPRE (Compromiso Empresarial Para El Reciclaje), a leading environmental group, and La Anónima, an Argentine supermarket chain, to increase recycling rates and capture more recyclable materials in the Patagonia region.
Along with an educational campaign and cleanup events, the effort in Argentina includes an innovative ecopoint collection center where families can drop off paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, aluminum, steel and tin cans for recycling. Centrally located near Muelle Piedra Buena to increase access to recycling, the ecopoint also offers an onsite composter for food waste and has a USB charging station for 10 cell phones.
Another program, launched in December 2021, brought together La Ciudad Posible, CEMPRE, the Chiloé Reduce program, Karün, the Municipality of Puqueldón and the Ministry of Environment for a "Recover and Transform" campaign in the Lemuy Island in the province of Chiloé.
This effort started with a local waste management diagnosis to raise awareness of plastic waste, which is being followed by programs such as the installation of ecopoints and education of local stakeholders to manage the processing of recovered material.
In both Argentina and Chile, the programs also sponsored beach cleanup events where local environmental groups, waste collectors and municipal staff collected trash from beaches while divers removed it from the surrounding waters.
The Argentine event was in Puerto Madryn, which is the largest breeding site for whales, the Magellanic penguin, elephant seals and sea lions. In Chiloé, Chile, the focus was Detif beach of Lemuy Island, which is also a protected natural area. Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites.
This is the first of seven ecopoint collection centers for cans, plastic and other recyclables that have been installed next to the commune of Puqueldón in Chile.
