Social and Environmental Responsibility

Know some of the social and environmental projects kept by Grupo Orsa:

Reciclando na Escola (Recycling at School)
Environmental education combined with income generation
Grupo Orsa’s volunteers visit schools to talk about the importance of separating the recyclable garbage correctly. Throughout the year, the students collect recyclable material which will then be collected by specialized people. The kilos are converted into points, which then become prizes to the school: computers photocopiers, recording cameras, etc. This has been done by the group’s units in four Brazilian states. In 2006, 545 tons of recyclable material was collected, by about 15 thousand students.

Agentes de Segurança como Agentes Sociais (Safety Agents as Social Agents)
Social Inclusion
The safety agents, who care for a 1.7 billion hectares area of Jari Celulose, in Pará, attend to about 1,500 families who live in communities by the river and the forest. They visit the low income families periodically, give health, first aid, basic sanitation, diet and children care directions; and information about tables of vaccines and breast feeding, to families with newborns, take part in events for residents with the participation of the government and help issuing documents and evaluating the children’s nutrition.

Caroço do Açaí (Açaí Pit Project)
Environmental preservation combined with generation of income
A partnership between the Jari Celulose’s volunteers and Associação dos Trabalhadores e Extrativistas de Açaí dos Estados do Pará e Amapá (Pará and Amapá States Açaí Extractive Workers Association) allowed the açaí pits to be made into clean fuel. Before the Project, the pits were dumped into the region’s rivers, causing a severe environmental problem: obstruction.  The volunteers discovered that the fruit pit is a potent fuel to the Jari Celulose factory boilers. Furthermore, the burning of the pits issues less carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere then the fossil oil. Result: what used to be garbage becomes clean fuel. In 2004 and 2005 alone, Jari Celulose reduced the quantity of fossil oil used in the plant, by over 300 tons.