Plastics: Nature‘s material of choice

When Alexander Parkes developed the first man-made PLASTIC in the 1860’s, he had no idea what an integral role the material would come to have in our everyday lives. Plastics today play an important part in cutting-edge technologies, such as the space program, consumer electronics and prosthetic limbs. They are also used in everyday products, such as beverage containers, medical devices and automobiles.



The fact that plastics are lightweight, versatile and can be designed to do what we want them to do make them an ideal choice in almost everything from delivering life-saving fluids through blood bags and IV tubes to lightening the weight of the automobile to help conserve gasoline and lower greenhouse gas emissions. And, plastics are also being recycled into many new and exciting products, like new beverage containers, PLASTIC lumber and decking, carpet, fleece – the list goes on. Plastics truly have become the material of choice for today’s ever-changing world

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Waste management poses challenges, but could unlock major environmental and economic gains

Every day, the city of Rio de Janeiro, one of the largest metropolises in the Southern Hemisphere, generates 17,000 tonnes of waste, ranging from large industrial debris to candy wrappers bought innocently at newspaper stands. While this waste presents a serious and urgent environmental challenge, it also fuels an increasingly significant portion of the economy, with benefits extending beyond financial gains. - When we look at developed European countries, many are already recycling between 40% and 50%, with some reaching 60%. From an economic standpoint, both recyclable materials and organic waste hold tremendous value - stated Adalberto Maluf, National Secretary for Environment and Environmental Quality at the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), during the Methane Forum: Climate Emergency Brake, at the Rio Nature and Climate Week. Citing a 2025 report, Maluf mentioned that Brazil literally throws away R$27 billion annually, while municipalities spend significantly more - R$45 billion - managing all this waste, often overlooking the environmental impact or economic potential buried in landfills and dumps. - We spend R$45 billion to collect and dispose of waste in landfills, yet we manage to recycle less than a third of the potential. I believe it will be necessary to review contracts, create performance-based remuneration mechanisms, and pay for both effectively sorted materials and those diverted from landfills - he added. According to the IBGE, 60.5% of Brazilian municipalities adopt some form of selective waste collection, and several initiatives serve as examples of how to manage city waste. In his panel presentation, Bernardo Ornelas, Project Coordinator at the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Urban Cleaning Company (Comlurb), highlighted Ecoparque do Caju, a national benchmark in waste management and recycling. There, received materials are sorted and can be used for biogas production, organic compounds for urban gardens, or human consumption, in the case of still...