Today...Visited a waste landfill site, where there was again sorting of the rubbish by hand. The site deals with about 26,000 tonnes per day or about 800kg per person. They do not collect the landfill gas, but they are trying to increase the recycling rate. There was discussion over targets, and strategies, it seems fronm an outside point of view that the public service operates on a project basis - and that they do not have overarching strategies so much as in the UK. However this may not be a critiscism because there are many strategies in the UK which are not actioned! One point which I pressed our rep from the council on was if they saw a conflict between the private company in this case gaining money from the sorting of the waste and promoting increased recyclign which would decrease the income, I was told that I had a point - but that the situation is reviewed on a regular basis.Wages are apparently better than the shoe factories for the jobs in sorting... about 800 REAL a month.
The Rio Grande de Sul area is a relatively progressive area with increasing recycling.... the rest of Brazil is learning from their example - they seem to be someway behind the UK. Reasons for this perhaps are a better climate, not so dry as other parts of Brazil, less social issues, and more development. Also they seem to have a real cultural problem - with people not respecting the environment and little understanding about the value of recycling anongst the population. There is much fly-tipping with the council being expected to clear it all up - perhaps not that much different!
Visit to Augusto Kampff Centre for the Environment in Igrejinha.
Next we visited an environmental centre next to a large Brewery... after meeting the Mayor.
We had a welcome with some children doing a traditional dance - which was very pleasent! In this area they speak German in the schools and there is a heavy German influence. This NGO had been going for a about 15 years, and they run a number of projects... promoting the reduction in plastic bag use, since 2007 collecting vegatable oil from over 100 collection sites to be reused in heating systems, taking tyres out of the environment, collecting flourescent tubes and bulbs, planting native species of trees and educating people on proper care of trees.The Counsel o Municiple de Meio Ambiente de lgrejinha, is a forum made up of NGOs industry and other representatives... they undertake these projects... although the relationship with the centre was a little unclear..... another lovely meal, and some more lovely people to say an all to brief goodbye to!..
We then visited the Education Centre in Parobe and saw the distribution of organic local food being undertaken to 23 schools in the area serving 8,900 students with meals which are changed daily to add variety and overseen by a nutritionist - sounds really good!
Then we visited another environmental centre the espaco socio ambiental which is a really brilliant centre - catering for 9,000 children a year with each child visiting 1 day per year. We undertook a walk with the children collecting samples of species, it was nice to get out and about. The children compared two areas one a ecuolpytus plantation and another native forest, the plantation was visably less diverse than the native forest, and the plantations are not well liked for this reason - similar to our pine forests.....
We then visited a similar environmental project in Sapiranga, the federal goverment has apparently instigated that each municipality must teach environmetnal education. The site had a herbal medicine ´clock´ and numerous herbs and varieties of plants to help with the eductation process. Also * Climate change is not a debate in Brazil according to people we have spoken to - unlike the UK* The cities here are new - abotu 30/40 years following the shoe factories, some are unplanned but there are some planned cities such as ararica.
We then went to a Rotary Club evening meeting, which was as friendly as ever
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