We are almost 210 million Brazilians. The fifth largest population in the world, in the fifth largest country on the planet. The largest in the southern hemisphere.
Brazil also has a coastline of more than 8,500 kilometers, which crosses 17 states and almost 400 cities. Even in a country with such a large interior, 60% of the Brazilian population lives in coastal cities: 126 million people. There are more people living in coastal areas of Brazil than the population of France and Italy combined.
With so much potential and so much to do in a country of continental dimensions like Brazil, one has to keep in mind that any attitude is important. If nothing is done, we will have more plastics than fish in the oceans by 2050. And we Brazilians can and should take action to prevent this from happening.
And now you will know what can be done. Clean Oceans A look inside home - Brazil When you think about the amount of plastic that is in the oceans, it is clear that this is a problem that affects the whole world. Each one of us has its own responsibility.
And then when you think about the size of Brazil, you can see that our part in this is very big. Brazil produces about 80 million metric tons of solid waste per year. It can fill more than 200 Maracanã stadiums every year.
And almost every Brazilian municipality has some service to collect this garbage, except that more than half of them dump this garbage in landfills. And the worst thing is that about 40% of this waste could be recycled, but for now we only do it with 3%. That’s about 8 billion on Reais lost every year.
It’s very difficult for those who don’t live close to the marine fauna, as we do in conservation projects, to understand the size of the impact of plastic on these animals. You see a sea turtle that can live 200 or 300 years, a species with a big extinction threat, dying from plastic ingestion, mistaking it for jellyfish that is it’s natural food or to see an adult humpback whale that reproduces in our coast, dying tangled on the fishnets that are being discarded or lost at sea, which are also a problem of plastic pollution that we have to start facing. But for this we must begin to make a good list of what Brazil produces, what Brazil is wasting and what resources we have to face this problem in our 8 thousand kilometers coast.
Within our Water Resources Cabinet there is a department that works with coastal management, which we’ve called Voluntary Commitment, which took effect in Brazil's voluntary commitment to the UN, that established that Brazil, until 2019, will elaborate it’s first action plan to combat marine debris. The first step is a great public hearing, we want to hear the whole Brazilian society, the individuals with their proposals, the companies that produce the packaging, the mayors, the association of mayors, the states, so we need to listen to everybody and we want that in this public hearing we can capture these ideas, this very will that we are feeling, that everyone wants to collaborate. This kind of large-scale action may take a little time to happen and we’ll not wait for the solution to come from the government.
On the contrary, it’s in our actions, which sometimes begin small and that can become gigantic and even be a reference in the whole world. And Brazil has already done this, we can do it again! The system began in the 90's, the can industry itself began to buy what was residential waste and it rewarded who brought the used cans for supermarkets and stimulated with prizes, like printers for schools, televisions, computers.
From then on, there was no influence of the government, there was never any influence, no subsidy, nothing. However, there were investment in the structuring of cooperatives and especially the recycling industry itself began to distribute points of purchase throughout Brazil, all over the national territory. It has to do with this fight for non-pollution, for prevention, because it has a recycling model that is a closed circle.
It leaves the factory, goes to the supermarket and then goes back to the supermarket in about 60 days. This cycle results in a recycling index of 98% of the cans sold in Brazil, which are effectively recycled. What we would like to demonstrate, not only for PET, not only for plastic, but for all products, especially those who compete with us, is that it is possible to imitate this model of the can, and apply this same system for all products.
Recycling is important, but it is not the only way out. Countries like Brazil need to work on several fronts to ensure that we have a more sustainable future. And before we get to action, we need to better understand what's going on and that's what activists, environmentalists and experts are so focused about at the moment.
When you think of coast, this region of the beach, the rocky coast, this region that is accessible by small boats, we know a lot, especially from Rio de Janeiro to the South, which is where we have a greater concentration of universities and research centers. Our problem is the platform and the ocean, that is, after we are away from the coast, some 30 miles, or 60 kilometers where it starts to get unknown, because then we need boats and the country has a big need for research vessels, it doesn’t have it. The main thing, I would say at that moment, is precisely to understand that the Brazilian part of the oceans is the least protected, especially the most distant zone, the part of the Exclusive Economic Zone, up to 200 nautical miles.
What we want is to know how this ocean works in terms of temperature, salinity, light penetration, plankton, how they structure the food chains. So what we are going to do is try to characterize regions of the Brazilian ocean that have never been studied or that have been very little studied. Now more than that, we also have the effort to protect important areas near the coast, such as mangroves.
Mangroves are essential for coastal stability, for the sustainability of fishing and for the lives of artisanal fishermen living either inside or next of mangroves. But there are other areas, the areas that fit within the program we call the Blue Initiative of Brazil, which is to have a strategy to adequately protect our seas, our coast, but by doing this with the society. At the moment we are looking to build projects with partners that can attract resources at an international level, but we also need the strong engagement of Brazilian society, we have for example, participatory biodiversity monitoring programs, volunteers, local communities and even a sustainable use of natural resources in areas that allow this, for example artisanal fishermen.
We want to see if there are partners interested in helping us manage protected areas. So, in fact, we are opening up that perspective that government alone accounts for everything and engaging society. I'm here in Itajaí for the event of Volvo Ocean Race, which is considered the most difficult sailing in the world.
Even with a public expectation of 300 thousand people, this event is characterized by sustainability. The structure has adopted the MeuCopoEco in several drinkers and with this they estimate that they will prevent the generation of plastic garbage of half a million disposable cups. The first experience I had with these cups was at the World Cup in 2006 in Germany.
They didn’t want the disposable ones, so what did they do? They put a bail in a quality cup. This works so well, because when you put a value, people are financing it, so they care for it and then you reduce the trash, right?
At parties, mainly, the biggest residue comes from drinks. At the moment you give the cup, you don’t have to serve the drink right into it, right? Because people are already coming with the cup in their hands, so then you can even rethink your bar, instead of using cans, you serve draught beer, you work with other reusable and returnable materials as well.
Then you can get at 80% less waste. EcoSurf is a movement that came from a group of young people concerned about the environment in which they spent most of their lives, which were beaches. So we see the surfer as a sea sentinel.
They’re people who spent a good part of their time there, in contact with the waves, in contact with nature. So we started the movement on the coast of São Paulo, specifically in the city of Itanhaém, around the year of 99 and 2000, organizing efforts to clean the beaches. And since then we have begun to deepen our knowledge and study and organization so that we can focus and create more impact on how to solve the pollution problem.
And that's been 18 years, and over the years, we’ve been working along the Brazilian coast with EcoSurf focal points distributed in the four macro regions of the country, as well as focal points in Europe and North Africa. One thing that everyone needs to learn is that there is no lost case and no small attitude, we can always do more to protect nature. And sometimes the smallest actions are those that have a huge weight, as is the case of this EcoBarrier that, alone, has already taken more than a metric ton of rubbish from the Atuba river, near Curitiba.
And this at the initiative of one person, Diego Saldanha. A fruit seller on the streets of Curitiba, Diego is an inspiration to everybody and as he put it on this plate here: "Activist is not the man who says that the river is dirty, it is the one that goes there and cleans the river. " I was born in this region here, today I have two children, they always asked me why we had to go away to swim, to fish or go to a beach if we had a river close to the our house.
So I wanted to show them that it’s possible to do something for the river, for nature, for our environment, so who knows, one day, in a very near future, that river may come back to reality, as a clean river. It’s made of floating gallons, wrapped with protective nets and it holds everything floating down the river. It also moves according to the floods of the river, when it rains too much, when the river rises it rises together.
When it’s too high, it loosens itself on one side, for security reasons, because it starts to descend tree branches, very strong these things. Then when the level goes down I pull it with the rope again and hitch on site. We already have a base, in this one and a half year of project, that have been withdrawn more than 1,5 metric tons.
PET bottles, a stove that was already taken out here, twisted iron that was taken from the bottom of the river. Everything I take away here is separated. The recyclables I send to the neighborhood school, which is the school where my son studies, the school also has a project called Recycle, which also encourages students to bring recyclable materials to school.
And in the end, the school resells the materials and applies the money for school improvements, painting the playground, buying books for the library, taking care of the school garden. So this initiative proves that you don’t need to have rivers of money to do something for our environment, just have the will, the courage and use your head there and do it, right? Actions like those of Diego are the ones that make all the difference.
But they would not be so necessary if everyone had done their part. And there's one very simple thing that you, me, everyone can do. Bring your recyclable waste to a collection point like this.
This one is in Rio, but there are hundreds spread throughout Brazil. If you have a place near your house, which you use, post it, mark with the #mareslimpos and together we will build this map. It is clear that when our waste is not disposed properly it ends up polluting the oceans.
In the next episode we will go deeper into this problem, of how the rivers also take the trash to the seas. And you already know, if you liked it, subscribe, give us a like and most of all, share this video! information is everything and together we are stronger to reverse this problem.
