Giorggio Abrantes learned to recycle PET bottles at a rehabilitation clinic and now has 1 million followers on social media
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The street cleaner Giorggio Abrantes, 40 years old, is from Aparecida (PB) and had alcoholism problems: «My wife was tired of so many difficulties and, at a certain point, we separated. She said she couldn’t stand the situation anymore and I even almost lost my job at the city hall, since I’m a street cleaner here.”
So, Abrantes asked his family for help to admit him to a rehabilitation clinic. It was there that he learned to make brooms by reusing discarded PET bottles.
“After the treatment was over, we remarried and, as the days passed, I started making brooms to survive, to earn some extra money,” explains the street cleaner who, some time later, started Post content about your work on social media media and get support from your followers.
He says people commented on his videos saying they too wanted to do the same recycling job. It was at that time that he looked for metallurgical workshops in his hometown to make machines, but met resistance. “I suffered several humiliations with locksmiths who didn’t believe me, who thought it wouldn’t work, that it was a waste of time,” he recalls.
“A website, Reasons to Believe, together with Voa, created a crowdfunding campaign. They told my story, they found the overcoming of alcoholism and the desire to return home, not to give up on the family, super interesting. And, with the collected sum of 17 thousand reais, I started to set up a workshop at the back of the house I was renting”, explains Abrantes, who covered the wall with a canvas and purchased a welding machine, a sander and a screwdriver. In this way he himself began to make the tools to make the brooms.
Since then, the street sweeper has started producing not only brooms, but also bags, hats, toys and has started selling the machines so that more people can benefit financially from this practice while generating a positive impact on the environment.
The project was a success. Adding up all his social networks, Abrantes has more than one million followers. He also became a speaker and is a finalist for the Expo Favelas award. With the value of the prize he intends to finish building his workshop and purchase machinery to be able to use other parts of the PET bottle, such as caps.
“I took the first step, I changed my life and the recycling project changed my life. Today I have things that I wouldn’t have thought I would have with the life I had before. It gave me financial autonomy, it filled me with hope that we can help the environment with the tools we have,” she comments.
Source: Terra
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