“This is such a beautiful beach. It is a real shame it is so dirty!”

(A quote from a young foreign tourist who was dismayed by the volume of litter on Ipanema beach).

Saturday 11th of January 2020 was another beach day in Rio de Janeiro and another challenge for the municipal garbage collectors as they try to collect and dispose of the hundreds of kilos of plastic trash and garbage left by beach-goers on the sands and by the waterline in Ipanema.

Saturday and Sunday are the worst days on Ipanema beach in terms of trash and garbage. Although the democratistion of suburban public access to Rio de Janeiro’s south zone beaches via BRT lines and metro may be laudable, it comes at a cost to the environment. The greater number of people flooding onto the beaches inevitably means a greater volume of litter. The endemic culture of carelessly littering the environment heedless of the damage caused means that many beachgoers turn the beach into a seaside rubbish dump or tip.

The litter also builds up in the surrounding streets as beachgoers discard their trash on their way to and from the beach. The careless public have adopted the street plant and tree beds as trash cans, as can be seen in the following photos in Rua Teixeira de Melo, one of the streets leading from the metro to Ipanema beach. 

(Trash in tree bed in front of Super Prix Supermarket)

Somebody has actually broken off the trunk of this tree. 

The situation is made worse by the fact that the small municipal litter bins fixed to lampposts are too small to handle the volume of trash. Moreover, the municipality has removed the large wheelie bins from the promenades, streets and sands.

I asked a local municipal garbage collector if the local council would bring back the wheelie bins. He said they had been removed because people either steal or break the wheelie bins. 

Even when there were wheelie bins, people would still throw their trash on the ground and so I believe it is a question of environmental consciousness and attitude not just the lack of litter bins. 

The most serious consequence of litter in the gutter of the streets is that it clogs up the rainwater drains, resulting in flooding in periods of torrential rain. Global warming means that such torrential rainfall is becoming more and more frequent. Recently, a number of major Brazilian cities have suffered torrential rainfall causing disastrous floods with consequent destruction of property and loss of life. 

The following two photos are of trash and garbage in the gutter, clogging the rainwater drains in Rua  Barão da Torre in Ipanema, next to Super Prix Supermarket. 

The next photo is of  a pile of trash and garbage thrown into the gutter under a truck in Rua Teixeira de Melo near the Zona Sul Supermarket, in Ipanema.

The unsightly piles of litter in the streets and on the beach are not only bad for the environment but also give a very negative impression to tourists.

See this photo of a small litter bin on the corner of Rua Teixeira de Melo with the Avenida Vieira Souto beach road in Ipanema, overflowing with trash and garbage.

In the late afternoon of 11^th January 2020, I jogged up the beach and collected piles of trash and garbage just along the shoreline and in the tidal zone of Arpoador beach in Ipanema. The trash included the ubiquitous plastic beverage containers, plastic straws, biscuit wrappers, mineral water bottles, plastic bags, beer cans, beer bottles and food remains. The following photo is of the shoreline trash collected at Arpoador.

Raucous music in poor taste assaults the ears at Arpoador. The soothing music of the lapping waves is drowned out. It seems noise pursues us wherever we go: from Brazil to Bali, from Ipanema to Ibiza. The norm these days for many beachgoers is noisy music of dubious taste, a lot of alcohol and a complete disregard for the natural environment.

Some beachgoers go to the beach equipped with sound systems with which they belt out rap music. Competing sound systems, often separated by a mere 20 paces, create a cacophony and resulting bedlam for other beachgoers. 

Jogging back from Arpoador, down to the area near Rua Teixeira de Melo, I collected further trash.  The second collection included two bags containing a lot of empty beer bottles. Those were very heavy. Many young beachgoers buy 10-kilo bags of ice and a lot of beer bottles and get well oiled on the beach. They usually just leave the bottles and ice bags near the shoreline. 

The result of the two collections along the shoreline probably came to about 40 kilos of trash and garbage. It was too hot and I was too tired to do any more. It is back-breaking work and I sympathise with the local garbage collectors. 

As I was finishing, a pretty young blonde tourist came up and helped me by collecting some trash. Dismayed by the amount of trash people leave on the beach, she said, “This is such a beautiful beach. It is a real shame it is so dirty!”

I thanked her and told her that unfortunately many people did not seem to care about the damage to the environment caused by plastic in the oceans. The waves sweep the trash in the tidal zone into the sea with disastrous consequences for marine life and human beings.

As I was leaving, I met two very pleasant lady municipal garbage collectors who said they had observed me picking up the garbage and wondered why a foreigner bothered to do this when many Brazilian beachgoers could not be bothered to do the same. I replied that I was only doing my part in helping to lessen the amount of trash and said, “Thank God you exist because without the municipal garbage collectors, we would all disappear under a mountain of trash!”

Ipanema beach is beautiful and deserves better treatment from the people who enjoy it. It is a tradition at Arpoador that beachgoers clap in applause as the sun sets over the sea to the west. I wonder whether they will clap as the sun sets on human life on this planet if our environmental stupidity takes us beyond the brink of extinction.    

DON QUIXOTE DE LA PLAYA!

DON QUIXOTE DE LA PLAYA !

Saved from

Rachel Gray

3

Don Quijote en la playa de Barcino, de Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau

In the nine and a half years that I have been picking up the trash on Ipanema beach, I have been called many things but perhaps the most amusing epithet is Don Quixote. 

One day, as I was picking up the plastic cups, plastic supermarket bags, plastic bottles, hundreds of plastic straws, glass beer-bottles, remains of food, dirty nappies, used sanitary towels, and other unmentionable ugly waste left on or near the waterline by beach-goers, a casual observer shouted, “ Hey, Don Quixote, how is it going?” I was not offended by the allusion. I replied, “ I could do with some Sancho Panzas to give me a hand!”

I am sure there are many who think my single-handed beach cleaning is a quixotic idea. However, there is an important difference between Don Quixote and myself. The intrepid but delusional errant knight created by Cervantes fought imaginary enemies, tilting at windmills because he thought they were giants. 

In contrast, there is nothing imaginary about the threat posed by plastic trash left on the beach and swept into the sea. It is a real enemy of the marine and human environment and represents a giant problem, as evidenced by the immense gyres of plastic waste in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. 

See the following photo and chart. Click on the links to read the articles.

 (Photo – AFP/Getty/The Guardian)

https://blueocean.net/great-pacific-garbage-patch-taking-trash/

Sources: 5Gyres Institute, CBC, news wires, Ocean Conservancy

https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/ocean-garbage/

Even in the off-season or winter months, beachgoers leave an incredible amount of trash and garbage along the waterline of Ipanema beach. This is waterline trash that I collected on 01.09.2019 and would otherwise have ended up in the ocean. (Photos taken by me).

By 18:00, I must have collected about 50 kilos of plastic trash, garbage and glass bottles just on the short stretch of the waterline of the beach shown in the above photos. It is back-breaking work and is not helped by the removal of many of the municipal trash wheelie bins from the beach.

I give thanks for windy, overcast days in Rio de Janeiro because at least the beaches and marine environment will get some temporary respite from the onslaught of trash and garbage caused by the ignorance, sheer laziness and deliberate, negligent littering by beachgoers.

On stormy days, the sea may well give up its dead but it also gives up the trash and plastic jetsam thrown away by beachgoers. The idiotic habit that humans have of taking the tops off plastic water bottles and throwing them away separately on the beach results in the jetsam in my photo of one small corner of the beach at Arpoador in Ipanema.

Count the number of bottle tops and bits of plastic that you can see in this photo and then multiply it several thousand times in order to get an idea of the volume swept into the sea from Rio’s beaches.  

We need to wake up before it is too late! People seem to be wilfully blind to the damage they cause to the environment.

All the signs are here that Mother Nature has had enough of our selfish behaviour. If we do not change and we give up on protecting the natural environment, one day soon Mother Nature may well give up on us!

NEW YEAR'S EVE IN RIO DE JANEIRO 31/12/2017
Resolutions for the New Year


Whatever resolutions people made on Copacabana Beach on New Year’s Eve 31/12/2017, they evidently did not include taking their trash home with them or throwing it in litter bins or trash cans. The ugly truth is that revellers left 285.65 tons of trash on the sands. This volume does not include the trash that the waves and tide swept into the depths. 

OFFERINGS TO IEMANJÁ


 

OR PROVOCATION TO OLOKUN?

On New Year’s Eve in Brazil, many people leave offerings of flowers and gifts at the sea’s edge for Iemanjá, the Goddess of the Sea, an important deity in the Afro-Brazilian religions of Candomblé and Umbanda. The offerings are made in the belief that Iemanjá will grant good luck and good health in the coming year. However, the tons of ordinary trash and garbage left by revellers at the water’s edge are also swept into the sea, causing disastrous consequences for the marine environment.

By any standard adopted, trash and garbage cannot represent a fitting offering to the deity. In fact, most people are unaware that, according to Yoruban tradition, Olokun is revered as the Goddess of the dark, mysterious depths of the ocean. Olokun also represents the sea in its stormy, frighteningly violent aspect. Moved to wrath, Olokun can present the sea’s most terrible, destructive propensity. 

I do not condemn the practice of making genuine offerings to Afro-Brazilian deities. However, the ordinary trash and garbage carelessly left by revellers at the water’s edge serve no religious purpose and do nothing but harm to the environment.

One might ask those who believe in Olokun whether such abject disrespect in treating the ocean as a gigantic trash can does not incur the deity’s wrath and provoke the said destructive propensity.

HERE COMES THE SUN and consequently the garbage and rubbish!

HERE COMES THE SUN and consequently the garbage and rubbish!

Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro is blessed with one of the most beautiful beaches to be found in any urban setting in the world. Yet, all it takes to turn this idyllic beach into something resembling a dumpsite of garbage and rubbish is a hot sunny day attracting hundreds of beachgoers who leave their garbage and rubbish all over the sands. 

There are large plastic garbage and rubbish bins on the sands near the promenade. Although the bins are no more than 50 paces from the waterline, beachgoers are apparently too lazy to carry their trash to them. Instead, they leave their plastic waste and garbage on the sands in complete disregard for the ugly spectacle it creates, the inconvenience to other beachgoers and, worst of all, the harm to the environment. 

In a blatant demonstration of abject ignorance, selfishness, social irresponsibility and a complete lack of environmental awareness, people regularly litter the sands with hundreds of kilos of plastic drinking cups, plastic mineral water bottles, plastic straws, biscuit wrappers, plastic supermarket bags, polystyrene food trays with remains of food, used female sanitary towels, dirty nappies/diapers, beverage cans, glass beer bottles, open sardine cans with cutting edges, old flip-flops and even sometimes used syringes with needles. 

In a world threatened by global warming, rising sea levels, toxic pollution and the man-made degradation and possible imminent destruction of the natural environment, this behaviour by beachgoers beggars belief.

The greatest threat to the environment comes from the hundreds of kilos of garbage and rubbish that people leave on or near the waterline. The waves and tide sweep such waste into the sea, causing harm to the marine environment and marine organisms. The tide and waves claim the tidal zone trash before the municipal garbage collectors have a chance to get it when they arrive at the end of the afternoon or early evening.  

On Sunday 02/11/2014, I collected about 90 kilos of plastic trash and garbage left by beachgoers on the waterline and within the tidal zone on the sands between Rua Farme de Amoedo and Arpoador Rocks.  This stretch represents about a third of the beach.   Multiply that figure by 3 and that will give you an idea of the total volume on the waterline and within the tidal zone of Ipanema beach that day, i.e. 270 kilos.

At sunset, beachgoers gather at Arpoador to applaud the sun as it sets over the horizon. It is a nice poetic gesture but, if they really loved this beautiful beach, a better gesture would be to use their hands to pick up the garbage. If humanity carries on laying waste to the Earth, we may not have many more sunsets to delight us.   

The photos below show the ugly scene that met my eyes when I went down to collect the tidal zone garbage and rubbish at the end of the day on Sunday the 2^nd of November 2014.

The next photos show the following:

(i)            the type of food waste and trash that is regularly left in the tidal zone;

(ii)          the plastic ice cube bags left on the sand by beach goers and used by me to fill with rubbish and garbage.  (The black backpack is mine)

Each bag weighs about 10 kilos when full and I throw the contents into the municipal garbage bins. On Sunday November 2^nd, I collected about 9 full bags of trash just from the tidal zone.

I pray that people come to their senses and start doing what they can to save the environment before it is too late. To quote the immortal Joni Mitchell in Big Yellow Taxi: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?”