Americas

Summary
In Brazil, International Synergies and in-country delivery teams from FIEMG and FEAM worked in partnership to deliver an industrial symbiosis pilot programme called Programa Mineiro de Simbiose (PMSI) (Minas Gerais Symbiosis Programme) to the Minas Gerais state with the aim to expand into a national programme.

The state was selected for the pilot project as it accounts for 12% of Brazil's Gross Domestic Product, generating over 15 million tonnes of waste per year. The project was part of the UK-Brazil Sustainable Development Dialogue programme; enabling International Synergies to demonstrate how industrial symbiosis can contribute towards sustainability by sharing best practice from its projects.

Now completed, the project has proven such a success that funding has been granted from the European Commission's Al-Invest Programme for follow on work that will enable the expansion of an industrial symbiosis programme into six further states.

Impact
Many synergies were identified from a membership of over 300 companies involving, among other resources, the use of foundry sand in road construction, metal slags into brick manufacture and wastes from the textile industry resulting in:

• Diverting over 94,500 tonnes of waste from landfill
• Reducing carbon dioxide emissions by over 84,000 tonnes
• Reducing hazardous waste disposal
• Cost saving to industry of over R$7 million (UK equivalent over £2,590,000)
• Additional sales for industry of over R$525,000 (UK equivalent over £194,000)

 
Many of the synergies identified came about as a result of knowledge gained from the UK industrial symbiosis programme (NISP). For example, a case study which resulted in the successful diversion of over 10,000 tonnes of waste foundry sand being diverted away from landfill in the West Midlands helped the Brazilian project to learn about examples of how foundry sands in civil engineering projects can be reused.