Waste and recycling services in Latin America
Waste and recycling services serving growers, packers and exporters in Latin America, including global operators active in the region.
Alimento Para Todos is Mexico City's food bank, part of the Bancos de Alimentos de México (BAMX) network, recovering surplus food and redistributing it to people facing food insecurity in the city.
A Culiacán-based food bank operating out of the city's Mercado de Abastos that rescues food that is no longer commercially viable and redistributes it to families facing food insecurity in eight Sinaloa municipalities.
Banco Diocesano de Alimentos Guadalajara is a nonprofit food bank in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco that rescues surplus produce from wholesale markets, agricultural fields and food businesses and redistributes it to charitable institutions across the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
A Tijuana waste management company that collects used cooking oil and food waste and converts them into biodiesel, alongside grease trap cleaning and wastewater disposal services.
A Tijuana waste management and recycling company handling collection, transport, treatment and disposal of biological, industrial and household waste, including sorting organic waste for agricultural compost.
El Morado Compost collects organic waste, free of inorganic contaminants, from clients in the Zapopan, Jalisco area and processes it into organic compost at its facility on Carretera a Nextipac.
FATSA Industrial is a SENASICA-certified rendering plant in Culiacán, Sinaloa that has processed meat by-products into flour and fat raw materials for animal nutrition for more than 36 years.
Green Cover Mexico collects organic waste from households and companies across Mexico City and converts it into compost, offering coverage throughout the CDMX metropolitan area.
Grupo VerdeMex collects organic waste under regulatory manifests from large generators such as central de abasto markets, agroindustry and food companies in the Guadalajara metropolitan area, and processes it into OMRI-certified compost at its Tonala and Tlaquepaque plants.
A Tijuana organic waste collection company that runs corporate recycling and residue-control programs to help businesses manage and divert their organic waste streams.
Promotora Ambiental (PASA) is a Mexican Stock Exchange-listed environmental services company headquartered in Monterrey that collects, transports and composts organic waste, issuing manifests documenting regulatory-compliant disposal for generators nationwide.
Australian subsidiary of the global REMONDIS Group providing commercial food organics collection and processing. It uses sealed tunnel composting to turn food and garden waste into compost, mulch and fertiliser for parks, agriculture and gardens.
Australia/New Zealand arm of the global Veolia environmental services group, providing food organics and garden organics (FOGO) collection and processing. It uses in-vessel composting and forced-aeration to make compost and soil conditioners, and runs anaerobic digestion converting commercial food waste to electricity.
Provides commercial and industrial composting services nationwide in Costa Rica, including advisory, installation and ongoing monitoring of on-site composting systems for businesses and institutions.
Fishing-industry association composting facility operating in Paracas Bay, Pisco province, since December 2011 that converts organic residue from industrial fishing operations into compost, having supplied over 170 metric tons to local governments for green space fertilization.
Banco de Alimentos Buenos Aires runs a food rescue and redistribution logistics operation out of its Benavidez distribution center, collecting surplus food from companies, supermarkets, wholesalers and producers and delivering it to social organizations. It reports distributing over 7,200,000 kg of food through more than 1,300 partner organizations using volunteer labor.
Operating since 2012 from Pavas, San Jose, this food bank rescues more than 380 tons of surplus food monthly and distributes it through a network of over 350 affiliated social organizations reaching over 41,000 beneficiaries.
Food bank operating since 2006 from a collection center at Calzada La Paz 18-40, Zona 5, Guatemala City, running its own logistics fleet of 8 vehicles to rescue food that producers, packers and supermarkets can no longer sell. Rescues and redistributes over 1 million pounds of food annually across roughly 100 communities nationwide.
Nonprofit food bank founded in 2011 by five private-sector companies, operating rescue, cold-chain storage and distribution logistics from agencies in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and Choluteca, having recovered over 9 million kilograms of perishable and non-perishable food through 144 partner charities.
A food bank operating under the Archdiocese of Guayaquil that has run for 15 years collecting surplus food from supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and agricultural producers and redistributing it through a network of social institutions, having served over 470,000 meals to vulnerable children.
Panama City food bank that rescues, inspects and redistributes surplus edible food from producers and distributors to vulnerable communities through warehouse based logistics programs.
Formally established in 2004, this nonprofit runs a genuine collection and redistribution logistics operation, recovering surplus produce from the Mercado de Abasto and rescuing more than 600 tons of fruit and vegetables from farm zones through its Rescate en Campo project, then delivering food daily to over 150 partner institutions from centers in Asuncion and Ciudad del Este.
Nonprofit food bank founded in 2014 that rescues surplus food from industry, supermarkets, restaurants and markets and redistributes it through partner organizations, using a cross docking logistics model without a fixed warehouse. It has recovered more than 5,000 tons of food and operates programs across Lima, Ica and Pisco.
Food bank certified by The Global Foodbanking Network that operates a rescue and redistribution logistics chain, collecting unsalable but edible food donated by companies, transporting it by truck to its warehouse, and distributing it to about 70 partner institutions across several provinces including Puerto Plata.
Food bank based in Montevideo that recovers surplus and near-date food from producers, retailers and supermarkets and redistributes it through a network of partner organizations to reduce avoidable food loss and waste, working with companies including Nestle, Danone, Arcor and Bimbo.
Registered fish oil refining plant in Supe Puerto, Barranca province, that reprocesses crude anchoveta oil byproduct into semirefined, refined and deodorized fish oil grades for human consumption, holding SANIPES export habilitation and a permitted industrial wastewater discharge of 5,606.64 cubic meters per year.
Rendering plant in Villa Hayes that processes bone, fat and slaughterhouse residue from allied meat plants into meat and bone meal for animal feed, using a continuous processor with 12 tons per hour capacity and a sterilizing digester.
Waste operator serving the Campinas metropolitan region, Anhanguera-Bandeirantes corridor and greater Sao Paulo that collects, transports and composts organic and Class II-A industrial residue at its own CETESB licensed thermophilic composting unit, handling MTR, CADRI, CDF and PGRS documentation for commercial clients.
Polymer recycling and compounding company at Avenida Elena 27-01, Zona 1, Guatemala City, operating a PVC compounding plant since 1995 and a dedicated PET bottle recycling division since 2009 that collects, cleans and shreds bottles into food-grade recycled material, currently processing about 6,500 kilograms daily with over 35 employees.
The Corporacion del Mercado Central de Buenos Aires operates an on site composting plant under its Programa de Reduccion de Perdidas y Valorizacion de Residuos, established by Resolution 189/2021. In 2024 it recovered 1,400 tonnes of fruit and vegetable residue from the wholesale market and produced 600 tonnes of mature sifted compost.
Processes poultry slaughter byproducts at its San Rafael de Alajuela operations into tortave meal, a rendered animal feed ingredient, as part of Corporacion Pipasa's integrated poultry and animal nutrition business in Costa Rica.
Plastics recycling operator based in Mixco at 14 Avenida 19-50 zona 4, Finca El Naranjo, with over 20 years processing post-industrial and post-consumer plastics including bottles, film and bags into raw material for furniture, industrial and agricultural products.
The public metropolitan slaughterhouse operator of Quito that processes bovine and porcine slaughter by-products into blood meal at 75 to 85 percent protein content, fetal bovine serum and bovine bile, generated from its own faenamiento facility.
An organic waste composting operator based in Quito that uses monitored, temperature and humidity controlled decomposition and a self-propelled turning machine to process organic residue into compost distributed nationally for agricultural use.
Founded in 2001 in Bogota, this food bank foundation operates a rescue and redistribution logistics chain, running a collection center at the Corabastos wholesale market since 2016 where it recovers 6 to 8 tonnes of surplus produce daily, then sorts, warehouses and distributes it to roughly 100 partner social organizations delivering 90 to 100 tonnes of aid daily.
Operates a 300 ton per day organic waste composting plant in Pedregal, east of Panama City, converting commercial, domestic and non-chemical industrial organic waste into agricultural compost products.
Animal by-product rendering plant (graxaria) located at Rod. BR 101 Norte km 238 in Fundao, Espirito Santo, that collects roughly 250 tonnes per day of cattle, pig and poultry slaughterhouse residue from all 78 municipalities of Espirito Santo state, including Vitoria, and processes it into meat and bone meal, high protein meat meal, poultry viscera meal and oil, and deproteinated bovine tallow.
Plastics recycling operator whose plant assembly began in 2018, collecting and processing high and low density polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene into pressed sheets measuring 1.15 by 2.50 meters, sold as a wood substitute for construction and garden products.
Grupo Acacia S.A.S. is registered with Colombia's ICA as a producer of animal-origin flours (harinas de origen animal) at its Carrera 18 No. 59B-85 Sur facility in Bogotá, rendering slaughterhouse by-products such as blood, feathers and bone into protein meal for animal feed.
Palm-oil producer cooperative operating a composting plant that processes empty fruit bunches into organic fertilizer and biomass fuel, plus an anaerobic-digestion biogas facility (Energeticos Renovables Hondupalma) established in 2008 at Aldea La 36, El Negrito, Yoro, generating 860 kilowatts from palm-mill wastewater to power its industrial operations.
Sao Paulo composting operator that runs a subscription collection service for compostable household, business and event waste, processing it at its own composting yard and garden site in the city, with fixed collection points set up at partner schools.
Rendering plant in Bogotá founded in 1983, known commercially as INPROSEPINAL S.A.S., processing bovine tallow, hides and meat and bone meal at its Carrera 19 Bis facility, which houses tanning, tallow rendering and meat meal production lines plus a quality control laboratory. Registered with ICA as a producer of animal-origin flours.
Interaseo has held the 15-year waste management concession for the Corabastos wholesale market in Bogota since October 2022, collecting, sorting and composting roughly 120 tonnes of organic and inorganic waste generated daily across the market's 45 hectares, running a classification center that produces compost and cattle feed material from vegetable and fruit residue.
Panama City based waste management and recycling company offering industrial recycling, hazardous waste handling and co-processing of waste into energy or raw materials for industrial clients.
Processes approximately 60,000 kilograms per month of industrial organic waste into vermicompost, compost and liquid humus, distributing through nurseries across Alajuela, Heredia, San Jose and Cartago provinces.
MAPAR operates a livestock byproduct rendering plant at Pampa 1007, Valentin Alsina, Buenos Aires province, processing slaughterhouse trimmings, bones and fat from partner frigorificos into meat and bone meal for animal nutrition and liquid tallow for soap, biofuel and pet food industries. It represents Argentina in the World Rendering Organization.
Nonprofit founded in 1998 that collects surplus food from commerce and industry in São Paulo that has lost commercial shelf value but remains fit for consumption, and redistributes it through a network of registered social entities.
Panama City headquartered offshore aquaculture company that opened a 1.5 million dollar byproduct processing plant at the Port of Vacamonte in 2022, converting fish trimmings and waste into fish meal and fish oil for poultry, swine and shrimp feed.
An organics collection service operating across Quito that picks up food and plant residue from households and businesses citywide and processes it at its own composting site near Guayllabamba into organic fertilizer and liquid plant nutrients.
Founded in 2019, this Asuncion based organics recycler collects compostable fruit, vegetable and other food waste from restaurants and allied companies and processes it into compost at its plant in Limpio, handling around 90 tons of organic waste in 2024 from 28 partner companies.
Solid waste management operator headquartered in Santiago de Surco, Lima, that runs the Huaycoloro sanitary landfill receiving roughly 3.5 million kilograms of waste daily and captures landfill biogas through about 300 wells to generate 4.8 MWh injected into Peru's national grid. It also operates the Model Sanitary Landfill of Callao.
Sao Paulo based organic waste operator, legal entity Realixo Servicos de Economia Circular e Sustentabilidade Ltda (CNPJ 46.284.471/0001-70), that runs subscription collection of compostable waste from households, restaurants, shops, offices and condominiums and operates its own composting yards in the Jaguare and Piqueri districts of the city.
Environmental waste management company founded in 2006 and based in Aldea Flor del Valle, Ticamaya, Choloma, handling collection, transport, recycling and controlled disposal of over 400 hazardous and non-hazardous waste streams for food manufacturing and other industrial clients.
Chile's first food bank, founded in 2010, rescues food-safe surplus product from companies and redistributes it through four Despensa Social pantries in the Santiago comunas of La Florida, Puente Alto, Renca and San Bernardo, with weekly distribution to vulnerable households and a new La Florida facility launched June 2026 serving over 2,500 elderly residents.
Operates a forced-aeration composting service in the Mananitas area of Panama City using oxygen and temperature sensors to monitor decomposition and produce agricultural compost.
Food bank and donation network operated by Sesc Sao Paulo since the 1990s, running a Centro de Captacao e Armazenagem at Av. Embaixador Macedo Soares in Sao Paulo that collected and redistributed about 4.37 million kg of surplus food, hygiene and cleaning items to registered social entities in a recent year.
Waste-services company based in Piantini, Distrito Nacional, Santo Domingo, that collects household and business organic residues under a membership model, pre-composts them using the Bokashi method, and returns finished compost to members.
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Common questions
How do I check whether a waste and recycling provider in Latin America is properly licensed?
Ask the provider directly for the permits or licences relevant to the material streams you need handled in Latin America, and confirm these against whatever national or local waste authority issues them. Requirements and the issuing body vary by country, so it is worth asking the provider to explain how their documentation maps to local rules rather than assuming a single standard applies.
Can one provider in Latin America handle multiple waste streams, such as plastics, metals, and organics?
Some providers in Latin America do cover multiple material streams, while others specialise in one, such as scrap metal or electronic waste. It is worth confirming directly which streams a given provider actually processes itself and which, if any, it passes on to a separate partner, since capability can vary significantly even among providers offering a broad service description.
What should I ask a waste and recycling provider in Latin America about how material is tracked?
Ask what records are kept from collection through to final processing or disposal, such as weighbridge tickets, transfer notes, or processing confirmations, and whether these are available to you as the customer. Traceability practices differ between providers in Latin America, so confirming this upfront avoids gaps later if you need to demonstrate how material was handled.
How do I check whether a provider listed for Latin America is actually reliable?
Look for a working address and contact details, and ask for references from businesses that have shipped through Latin America recently rather than relying on a listing alone. Confirm the specific service you need, storage, freight forwarding, or customs handling, since a general logistics listing does not always mean deep capability in the one service that matters to your shipment. A provider willing to explain what happens when something goes wrong is a stronger signal than any credential.
Should I use a local provider in Latin America or an international one with a presence there?
It depends on what matters more for your shipment. A local provider in Latin America usually has deeper knowledge of ground conditions, relationships, and paperwork specific to that market, while an international provider offers a single point of contact and consistent processes if your goods also move through other countries. Many exporters combine the two: a local provider for physical handling in Latin America, and a wider forwarder to manage the rest of the route.
What should I ask a provider in Latin America before committing to work with them?
Ask what happens to your goods at each handover point, who is responsible if something is delayed or damaged, and what documentation they produce and when. Ask for a quote that breaks out individual charges rather than one bundled figure, so you can see what you are paying for at each stage. It is also worth asking directly how they have handled a shipment that ran into difficulty in Latin America, since that answer tells you more than a general pitch.
Sourcing waste and recycling across the Americas
Waste and recycling in Latin America is shaped first by distance. The Americas cover enormous stretches between population centres, and material recovered in an interior region often has to travel a long way by road or rail before it reaches a coastal facility or a processing hub. This makes logistics planning, rather than sorting technology, one of the biggest practical differences between markets in this part of the world. A provider's footprint in Latin America is often defined as much by its haulage network as by the processing equipment it owns.
The region also mixes highly organized, well-capitalized municipal and industrial waste systems with informal recovery networks that remain significant in many countries, particularly for materials like scrap metal, cardboard and certain plastics. Agricultural and extractive industries generate their own distinct waste streams, from packaging and processing residues to material tied to mining and forestry, and providers serving those sectors often operate quite differently from those focused on urban municipal contracts. A buyer sourcing in Latin America should expect this split and ask directly which side of it a given provider sits on, since capability, equipment, and reporting standards can differ substantially between the two.
Cross-border movement of recyclable and hazardous material is a live and evolving area across the hemisphere, with countries applying their own permitting and notification requirements independently of one another rather than through a single shared framework. Providers active in Latin America need to work within whatever domestic rules apply there, and those rules can change how straightforward it is to move material between neighbouring countries. Labour practices and formalization also vary considerably, from highly regulated corporate operators to smaller family businesses and cooperatives that play an important role in collection and initial sorting. Understanding which of these a provider represents, and how it fits into the wider chain from collection through to final processing or export, is central to sourcing well in this region.
How trade moves through Latin America
Latin America covers enormous geographic and climatic range, and its trade infrastructure follows that range rather than smoothing over it. Major agricultural exporting nations along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts operate substantial, modern port systems built specifically around grain, meat, produce, and other bulk and refrigerated agricultural exports, while inland and Andean economies depend more heavily on overland transport to reach a coastal port, often crossing a neighbouring country to do so. This means a meaningful share of the region's agricultural trade is genuinely transnational in its routing before it ever becomes international in its final destination, with goods produced in one country regularly exported through a port in another.
The region's trade geography is shaped by long north-south and coast-to-interior distances, mountain ranges that constrain overland routes to specific corridors, and a strong seasonal cycle tied to Southern Hemisphere harvest timing that runs opposite the Northern Hemisphere's. Refrigerated and ambient storage capacity is well developed around major export ports and agricultural processing zones, particularly for produce, meat, and grain destined for demanding export markets, but capacity thins noticeably away from those established corridors. Inland transport by road remains dominant across much of the region, and road quality, border crossing efficiency, and customs processing speed vary considerably between countries, which affects lead times more than shipping schedules do once cargo actually reaches a port.
Provider structures vary by country and by how export-oriented that country's agricultural sector is. The larger exporting nations support sizeable, experienced freight forwarding and cold-chain logistics sectors used to meeting demanding international food safety and traceability requirements, alongside major international shipping lines calling at their main ports directly. Elsewhere in the region, particularly in smaller or less export-focused economies, the provider base is thinner and more generalist, and cargo may need to move through a neighbouring country's more developed logistics sector to reach an international buyer at all. Family-owned transport and logistics operators remain common throughout the region and often carry deep, practical knowledge of specific agricultural corridors that larger multinational operators do not replicate.
Someone sourcing across several Latin American countries at once should pay close attention to where a shipment actually crosses into export infrastructure, since goods grown inland frequently travel a considerable distance overland, sometimes through a second country, before reaching a port. Import and export documentation, phytosanitary certification, and customs procedures differ meaningfully by country even where trade agreements exist between them, so a certificate or process accepted in one market cannot be assumed to satisfy another. Southern Hemisphere harvest timing also means this region's export peaks can run counter to those of Northern Hemisphere competitors, which matters for anyone planning supply continuity across sourcing regions rather than within Latin America alone. Language is largely shared across the Spanish-speaking countries, which eases coordination, but Brazil's Portuguese-language market and distinct regulatory system sit apart from that pattern and should be treated separately.
Building a sourcing plan across Latin America means recognising which countries function as export gateways for their neighbours, matching provider selection to how developed a given country's own export infrastructure actually is, and planning timelines around genuinely long overland legs rather than assuming port proximity for every origin point. It also means being specific about which coast, and which mountain corridor, a given origin actually depends on, since two countries that look close together on a map can in practice route their exports through entirely different ports and logistics networks.
Comparing waste and recycling providers in Latin America
Fernable lists a wide range of waste and recycling providers across Latin America, and the practical challenge is not finding one, it is narrowing the field to the ones worth a call. Start with what the provider actually handles day to day: the waste streams they collect and process, whether that is general commercial waste, packaging, organics, construction debris, or specific recyclable materials, and whether they separate at source or rely on downstream sorting. Two providers can look similar on a listing page and diverge sharply once you ask what happens to material after collection: one may route it to a local materials recovery facility with visible onward buyers, another may bundle it for export or landfill with far less transparency. That distinction matters more than almost anything else when you are trying to meet a client's compliance or sustainability commitments, and it rarely shows up unless you ask directly.
Some differences are meaningful and some are cosmetic. Fleet size and branding say little about whether a provider can actually service your site reliably. What matters is licensing and permits for the specific waste categories you generate, documented chain of custody, and whether they can produce the paperwork a shipper or regulator will eventually ask for, such as waste transfer notes, recycling certificates, or evidence of final disposition. Geographic coverage within Latin America is also worth checking properly rather than assuming: a provider might list a national presence but subcontract collection in outlying regions, which changes both price and accountability. Ask how they price, whether by weight, volume, or container size, since a like-for-like comparison across providers is only possible once you know which basis each one uses.
Run the comparison in stages rather than trying to hold every provider in your head at once. First filter by the waste streams and volumes you actually generate, which usually cuts the list substantially before you have spoken to anyone. Then request the same information from each remaining provider: permitted categories, collection frequency options, reporting format, and contract terms including notice periods. Treat responsiveness during this stage as a real signal, since a provider that is slow or vague before you are a customer tends to behave the same way afterwards. Finally, weigh flexibility on collection scheduling and contract length against the reporting depth you need. A provider offering rich sustainability reporting is only useful if the rest of the service, timeliness and reliable collection, holds up in practice, so treat marketing language about capability as a starting point for verification rather than a conclusion.