ABOUT

The iconic Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is one of the most polluted bays in the world. This pollution is resulting in the degradation of mangroves and loss of the bay’s purification capacity. Fish stocks are much depleted, both in volume and in diversity, and due to ocean currents, plastics and other residues discarded in the Bay also affect marine wildlife located at a long distance from the Bay.

Thousands of independent waste pickers work in the margins, catchment and tributaries of the Guanabara Bay. This project intends to mobilise them, and fishermen working in the bay, to undertake a large-scale clean-up of the bay and connect this activity to the Circular Credits Mechanism (CCM), an innovative new market mechanism to provide a sustainable source of income for low-income groups in developing countries that engage in waste collection, recovery and recycling. The mechanism is based on performance-based payments for environmental services related to the circular economy. This is a socially inclusive innovative market mechanism with positive social and environmental impacts.

The project will prepare selected waste- picking cooperatives and fishermen to recover plastic from the bay and use this activity to enter the Circular Credit market through capacity building training, guidance on clean-up activities, and connecting the cooperatives with corporate investors (plastic credit buyers).

The project also includes research and monitoring of the important ecosystems and conservation units that exist within the bay area. The overall goal of the project is to restore the natural ecosystem of Guanabara Bay, an oceanic bay located in Southeast Brazil in the state of Rio de Janeiro, by mobilising and incentivising the local waste-picking co-operatives and fishermen to collect plastic waste both from the bay and the surrounding urban areas that the plastic waste enters the bay from.