BVRio joins Copacabana ‘Circular Beach’ Project

BVRio will play a pivotal role in benchmarking plastic use and waste on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro until December this year, as part of the ‘Circular Beach’ project run by The Circular Plastics in the Americas Program (CPAP).

The 9 month long, multi-partner project aims to reduce plastic waste dumped on beaches, in order to develop a cleaner and more welcoming environment for visitors. The purpose is to promote sustainable tourism by engaging local establishments to adhere to good practices and new business models that add value to the city as a responsible travel destination, including actions both to reduce plastic consumption and to increase recovery and recycling.

The pilot will take place on a 1 km stretch of the beach and engage different businesses operating in the area, such as hotels, restaurants, kiosks, and informal beach sellers to support the regulation of banning the sale of items in single-use plastic packaging in the tourism system and commerce in general. New water refill points will be installed on the beach, along with a new reusable cup scheme and publicity campaign to educate beachgoers about alternatives to single use plastics. Monthly beach cleans will be undertaken to measure the effectiveness of the project.

BVRio will help fulfil the initiative’s mission to create a management model that can be replicated anywhere in the world for actions aimed at reducing plastic consumption and waste generation.

The services provided by BVRio will include operational and monitoring activities, with our team offering capacity building talks for the participating businesses and carrying out the mapping of plastic waste used by the establishments. In addition, BVRio will monitor the activities and consolidate the data collected in the field throughout the duration of the project.