Waste recovery in Brazil is lower than in countries with the same level of development, like Chile, Argentina, and South Africa, where the percentage stands at 16 percent.
Cigarette butts and styrofoam appear in second and third places among the 15 most found items, which altogether represent 80.3 percent of the waste on the Brazilian coast.
In Brazil, 79 million tons of urban solid waste were produced I 2018—an increase of less than one percent from the previous year. Of this total, 92 percent (72.7 million) were was collected—up 1.66 percent against 2017.
Rio's mayor, Eduardo Paes, has recognized that the “piles of trash” left on the streets following a garbage collectors' strike which began on March 1st and is held as illegal by courts has created an ugly picture of the city following Carnival, a peak tourist season.
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