GERA

Long description

GERA is a project that aims to consolidate itself as a social business, acting based on three criteria; environmental, social and economic. In the context of the city of Rio de Janeiro, solid waste management is, despite an urgent problem, placed in a second or third place. In Brazil, about 30% of the waste generated has the potential to be recycled, but only 3% finds that destination. It’s in this context that GERA operates, developing connections between recycling cooperatives and waste-generating establishments. The project team integrates intelligent logistics to manage everything that the establishments produce, closing a partnership with some recycling cooperative nearby and defining a route and dates on which the collection will be made. The environmental criterion is very tangible for the project in this sense, but what about the social and the economic? It turns out that recycling cooperatives work with the use of scavengers, people who are willing to do the work of sorting waste in the cooperatives, something that no one else wants to do. At the end of the month, employees share profits, which are usually very low. By connecting establishments to cooperatives, GERA allocates more solid residues to cooperatives, which generates more production and higher revenue, impacting both socially and economically the lives of cooperative workers. Finally, our team develops awareness actions in events, training and on social media in order to make people aware of the environmental cause and give dignity to the cooperative workers.

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