LOCAL BEACHGOERS AND TOURISTS CONTINUE TO TRASH IPANEMA BEACH
NOTHING HAS CHANGED. MANY PEOPLE SHOW NO ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS, EVEN DESPITE THE CLIMATE CRISIS CAUSED BY MAN'S IGNORANCE.
I started plogging along the water's edge on Ipanema Beach in 2010 and in the 14 years of collecting plastic trash, beer bottles, dirty nappies, sanitary towels, take-away food boxes, biscuit wrappers, plastic bags and assorted garbage since then, I have seen little or no improvement in beachgoers' behaviour and environmental consciousness. In fact, the trashing of Ipanmea beach has just got worse.
On 19/01/2025, the beach was jam-packed with people and there were volumes of trash on the sand between their beach chairs, next to the water's edge. Most of this trash would have been left there and swept into the ocean by the rising tide and waves. These are the scenes that met my eyes.
In fact, there was so much trash that it would have taken me 4 hours to collect the trash on just ⅓ of Ipanema Beach. It was demoralising and I just managed to collect 2 plastic bags of trash along a 5-metre stretch. See the photo below.
Just in front of Arpoador Rocks, on another 5-metre stretch, I managed to collect this grey bag of trash. There was just too much trash to collect. So, I went up on to the rocks and collected trash there instead.
See this video filmed by Nicolas Mandri-Perrot, when he interviewed me about my plogging.
SEE THIS PHOTO PUBLISHED IN AN ARTICLE IN GLOBO BY ANNA BUSTAMANTE
— Rio de Janeiro
