Community Projects
Our goal is to act as an enabler of the circular economy within our community. To achieve this, we focus on the following tasks:
1) We start by identifying gaps in the supply chain to determine how we can contribute.
2) We collaborate with different entities within the supply chain highlighting their work towards building a circular economy.
3) We collect information on the inputs and outputs of different entities to see if value can be added to the supply chain.
4) We act as a test bed to validate possible solutions.
Tratolixo
There is a misconception that plastics are bad for us but plastics are a highly versatile, low-cost, light weight material. Plastic pollution is a result of the way we consume plastics and how we dispose of it. In Portugal, different municipalities have different entities responsible for waste collection, management and its disposal. In Oeiras, Tratolixo is responsible for these functions. They provided us with average percentages of recycling for the different types of waste, plastic (60.8%), aluminum (0.66%) and steel (3.31%) in 2019. The average percentage of recycling plastic in Portugal is 44%.
Extruplas Lda
We found, to our surprise, that mixed plastics had the highest percentage of recycling because of one company. Extruplas Lda has been upcycling mixed plastics into outdoor furniture for the past 20 years.
Mixed Plastics - 34.92%
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) - 8.99%
Low density polyethylene (LDPE) - 6.02%
High density polyethylene (HDPE) - 5.59%
Polyethylene (PET) and paper mix - 4.34%
Expanded Polystrene (EPS) - 0.09%
Polyethylene (PET) oils - 0,87%
Brigada do Mar
Brigada do Mar is a voluntary organization involved in implementing actions in the communities to protect biodiversity and the environment. Their activities focus on environmental education, nature preservation, and promotion of public health, conscious consumption and healthy life-styles. Since 2009, they have removed 800 tons of waste from the Portuguese costal region.