Today, Chile recycles just a small part of all solid waste, including scrap tires, estimated at only 10 percent of waste produced, due to absence of special policies designed specifically to target different kinds of solid waste.

To design a policy and succeed in recycling practices, the National Association of the Recycling Industry ANIR ordered the consulting company Sustrend S.P.A. to work on Municipal Solid Waste program by analyzing successful projects around the globe encouraged by Extended Producer Responsibility Systems (EPR).

At early stages, the developers tried to select the countries that show the highest application of recycling and to analyze crucial data such as how much municipal solid waste is generated per capita, how quantities of recycled waste varied in these states throughout the years, what forecast the countries have for their recycling rate, and other factors.

The researchers looked at these developed states: Germany, Wales, Austria, Italy, South Korea, Belgium and Switzerland; all with a recycling rate of over 49 percent.

The best achievement have been attained so far by Germany, Wales, Belgium and Italy; with a recycling rate of 56.1%, 52.2%, 49.0% and 49.7% respectively. Germany, for example, in 2015 showed an increase of 8 percent in the value of its recycling rate compared to 2005 – this helped it to reach a rate of 66 percent. And Italy, in the same period, managed to show 139 percent increase, thus, attaining a rate of 43 percent.

All of the studied states were implementing circular economy tactics. More significant results and updates on environmental policies of Chilean authorities are yet to come.

Article by Pais Circural.