BE A FRIEND OF THE GARBAGE COLLECTORS

On Saturday 26th of May 2012, I got to Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro at about 17:00 and decided to clean up the beach along the waterline from a point opposite Rua Farme de Amoedo up to Arpoador. There was not so much garbage as I had expected. The total amount collected along the waterline was about 35 kilos. On a bad day, it would have been twice that amount at least.

I met a nice young couple from the Czech Republic, who were sitting by the waterside. They were on holiday in Rio and said they were horrified by the amount of trash people left on the beach. They were taking their trash back to the hotel to dispose of it. If everyone took their trash home and disposed of it or threw it in the municipal garbage bins or trash cans, there would be no problem.

When I got to Arpoador, I met two municipal garbage collectors I know: William and Joaquim.  They were performing the thankless task of cleaning up the mess left by beachgoers. The other day William called me the Garbage Collectors’ Friend and said he wanted to tell a journalist he knows to do a report about me in tribute to my efforts. I said that it was the municipal garbage collectors who deserved the tribute not I. Can you imagine what Rio’s beaches and streets would be like without them?  We would be buried under mountains of plastic garbage and trash. We should all be friends of the garbage collectors. We should all throw our trash in the garbage cans or take it home and dispose of it. Is that too much to ask?

One day a beachgoer said he thought the municipal garbage collection service should just stop cleaning up the beaches for a while and let it mount up because perhaps people would then realize just how absurdly wrong it is to leave garbage on the beach.

At the end of the day, this is what the sand looks like at the edge of the beachfront and promenade: 

What kind of impression do scenes like this give of the Cidade Maravilhosa or the Marvellous City as Rio is called?