Swiss Partners
Stiftung Fair Recycling
www.fair-recycling.com
Chantale Beolchi
Local Partner
iWrc University
www.iWrc.world/iWrc-university
Beat Grüninger
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Swiss Contribution
The Fair Recycling Foundation is a Swiss organisation that promotes climate protection through environmentally friendly recycling in developing countries. Since 2008, the Foundation has been working with local partners in Brazil to professionally dispose of old refrigerators according to Swiss standards. Since the start of the project, more than 1.7 million CO2 equivalents have been saved. Fair Recycling and iWrc partnered in 2023 to create the “iWrc University” learning platform and expand the programme.
Fair Recycling is a major contributor to this project, providing high quality learning content on recycling, circular economy and materials management. This content is carefully curated by a Swiss expert.
Description
The Brazilian organisation ‘Inclusive Waste Recycling Consortium’ (iWrc) has developed the digital learning platform ‘iWrc University’ for waste collectors in the informal sector and would like to further develop the learning platform for private and public recycling companies in the formal sector. The existing learning platform for the informal sector complements the existing marketplace model tested in the REPIC Pilot 2018-2020. In the marketplace model, iWrc connects large companies with socially responsible cooperatives.
In the past, waste collectors often picked up recyclable materials individually, sorted and sold them to recycling companies or intermediaries. Today, waste collectors often organise themselves into cooperatives. These enable waste pickers to protect themselves against exploitative prices from middlemen through collective bargaining power and provide access to labour rights, social and health insurance and training, which are often lacking in the informal sector. In order to achieve sustainability goals, companies need to bring large quantities of collected material (post-consumer recycled material – PCR) into their value chain and are therefore dependent on waste pickers.
By building knowledge, the project helps waste collectors work safely, earn better wages and improve the quality of recycled material. The roll-out project aims to scale up the ‘iWrc University’, a model for vocational training in waste recycling for waste pickers in the informal sector and recyclers in the formal sector.