The city’s paper recycling alone saves the equivalent of 1,200 trees a day” (Curitiba, Brazil 1). Most retired city buses are reused as offices or mobile schools! From 1989-2007, the recycling organization has saved 419,000 tons of garbage- enough to fill 1,200 twenty story buildings. Plastic, paper, glass, aluminum, and inorganic waste totaled 13% of garbage collected. In 1995, “the city. . .exchanged almost 2 million pounds of food, 348,000 Easter eggs and 26,000 Christmas cakes for recyclable trash” (Los Angeles Times 2). “At the start of the school year, Christiano Pereira Pinheiro, a winsome 7-year-old, traded 8 pounds of recyclable garbage in exchange for new notebooks,” in 1996 (Los Angeles Times 1). Every week, his family recycles 2 lbs. of trash in exchange for food. Rather than maintain a costly recycling plant, the city has the community play a huge role in helping the city remain “clean.” The town is also taught how to reuse items by the IPPUC, through a recycling education.
