Eccaplan operation sponsored by Conasa Infraestrutura involved waste picker cooperatives in 5 cities

During the Sertões 2023, the biggest rally in the Americas, Conasa Infraestrutura sponsored several social and environmental actions during the event, including a partnership with Eccaplan – Consultoria de Sustentabilidade, as part of the Sou Resíduo Zero project, which aims to raise awareness about the impact of waste generation on the environment, the importance of disposing of waste correctly and generating income for waste picker cooperatives.

There were 12 days of work with waste picker cooperatives in Petrolina, Crato, Sobral, and Cruz, as well as the arrival in Praia do Preá. All the Sertões Villages had selective waste garbage cans so the teams involved could work on environmental education and waste segregation at source.

In addition to this action, which directly involved 30 waste pickers, the partnership between Conasa, Sertões, and Eccaplan included lectures on pedagogical gardens and the implementation of compost bins in two municipal public schools, in the municipalities of Petrolina/PE and Cruz/CE, involving 380 people including students, parents, and teachers.

In total, 7,031 kilos of recycled materials were separated, generating environmental benefits and income for four waste picker cooperatives – Comarca (Petrolina/PE); AARC (Crato/CE), Associação de Catadores e Catadores Força de Vida (Sobral/CE); and Coopbravo (Cruz/CE) - which were responsible for collecting, transporting, segregating, and weighing the materials separated into cardboard, plastic, pet, cans, and glass.

“Our aim is to change the relationship people have with waste in the sense of not generating, reducing, reusing, recycling, and composting. Within these actions we contribute to giving the correct destination to all waste, creating jobs, and supporting waste picker cooperatives, and combating waste,” said Fernando Beltrame, President of Eccaplan.

For Conasa Infraestrutura, participating directly in this action was a way of expanding the company’s environmental practices and helping to raise people’s awareness of waste production and ways of reusing it. “Through the ‘Sou Resíduo Zero’ project, we are supporting the environmental management of the Sertões 2023, bringing environmental education to students and generating income for local communities,” said Mario Marcondes Neto, president of Conasa.