January 14, 2008
For the fifth successive Christmas, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited an association of rubbish collectors, many of whom live in the streets. If you walk or drive around Brazil´s larger cities you will be familiar with these "catadores", as they are known, filling plastic bags or pulling rickety wooden carts packed with rubbish, mainly paper and scrap metal. There are reckoned to be around 300,000 of these human scavengers nationwide. There is nothing new about poor people combing through rubbish in search of something they can salvage but, as society is starting to realize the importance of recycling, they are now beginning to gain a higher status. In recognition of this, parts of the private sector in Brazil are now joining the public authorities to help bring the catadores into the formal economy. This is laudable not only because it will encourage recycling in Brazil, which is scandalously behind other countries in this area, but also create a sustainable income for these people. A signs of progress is the fact that catadores are now being offered loans, an idea which would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
When people replace their home electronics, the old equipment is often still working, but difficult to sell. Second Rotation is attempting to create a marketplace for used electronics that will slow the pace of new additions to the landfill.
Digital cameras, gaming consoles, MP3 players and old cell phones are all items that the company might buy. It generally won’t pay for broken devices, but does offer a free recycling service.
The $4.4 million funding is Second Rotation’s first, led by Venrock, with some participation from angel investors. The company is based in Waltham, Mass.
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