Wrapping up another work week, I’ll leave you with another excellent emerging economy SME that is creatively meeting new market needs while achieving environmentally beneficial outcomes.  One of our New Ventures folks, Kelly Desy, recently interviewed an entrepreneur who saw plenty of money to be made in….. fluorescent light recycling.  Not a pressing environmental concern you say?  As Kelly reports, Brazilians discard 100 million lights every year, almost entirely straight into landfills, leaving hundreds of pounds of mercury to enter the environment.  

Fortunately, an enterprising chemist with the water department, Gilvan Araujo, saw an opportunity.  With a simple team of five bright minds, Araujo created Tramppo Recicla Lampadas, a company dedicated to offering recycling services for these fluorescent lights and selling the valuable residual materials for reuse.  This makes it easier for Tramppo’s clientele in Brazilian office buildings to adhere to environmental regulations while taking at least some of the burden off of the landfills piling up around cities. 

 

Recently, my home state of California succeeded in halving the amount of waste reaching these garbage piles, although their efforts were a few years late.  I wonder if they would have hit that goal earlier with Tramppo’s services…. In fact does a similar company exist anywhere else?  I know they are an original creation at least in Brazil, and as a company that proves again how small enterprise can make huge waves, they are a great candidate for a Rising Ventures feature.  Read the full article here.