Change the World Wednesday – 16th Jul

Remember my green tomatoes from a couple of weeks ago?

Well, a couple of them actually turned red, small but ripe.

Ripening before the plant died off

And this was their fate…

A blurry pizza

Yes, they were sacrificed in the name of football (soccer) during the World Cup.

A couple of weeks ago, three actually, I harvested my chilies. Here is the bush again this week.

Ready to harvest again

I also have fresh ginger to pull when I need it.

This is one lot of ginger, there is another

And my guava are guavering…

Bunches of guava, soon for the plucking

I have so many guava, that I have been giving them to the neighbourhood kids, which prompted one of them to comment, “Você não é tal velho caduco),” (You’re not such a grumpy old man at all). Made me grin.

The produce shop has closed permanently, sadly 😦 It is becoming a neighbourhood pizza place…

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On with this week’s CTWW,

Plastic Bags!

Those evil things.

This week, ban plastic bags. Carry a reusable bag, use a box, or simply carry items loose. Say NO to plastic bags and don’t allow them into your home.

 

OR … If your home is plastic bag free, please refuse to buy anything which is packaged in plastic (I know … it’s truly a challenge … but I have confidence in you).

 

OR … Look around your home for plastic items and then, research non-plastic alternatives. If you are ready to replace the item, please do. If not, make plans to do so when the time comes.

 

I don’t qualify for parts 2 & 3.

But I do try to minimise my plastic bags. I try to take reusable bags, but don’t always find myself in a position to do so, my visits to the supermarket are often spontaneous, a decision made while out.

At the moment, one of my supermarkets is out of the paper option, and the girl at the checkout was packing my stuff. Sometimes she would put just two or three items in a bag, I complained bitterly, unpacking and repacking more items to reduce the number of bags.

My haul of bags from the supermarket

This girl had no idea. I might have been talking Portuguese (actually I was) and she still couldn’t grasp the idea that I wanted less plastic bags. The concept was totally beyond her. I reduced the number of bags by more than half had I let her do it alone.

I complained to the owner. We have spoken on many occasions, mostly complaints; Brazilians don’t complain, I do. I told him of my experience, and suggested that his staff training was lacking when it came to environmental issues. He agreed, and said he would look into it, and I know he will, he’s not Brazilian, but rather Portuguese and sees management from a European point of view.

So while I suffer plastic bags, I don’t do it lightly.

In this case, I hope that I have raised some awareness.

All those bags will be reused. Mainly as rubbish bin liners; buy plastic trash can liners, that I’d never do, our rubbish collections are not designed for trash cans. Also they are used for my recyclable items on Tuesday’s recycle collection. If I have a surplus, I give them to the botequim for take-aways, so he doesn’t have to buy plastic bags for customers to lug away their bottles.

Oh, and the people who use them to take away their beer, they’ll use them as trashcan liners. Triple and double use is better than single use.

Here in Brazil the lack of education, especially in environmental issues is almost non-existent, although small changes are being made in schools now, but it will be a generation before we see any real improvement.

Public utilities like rubbish collection need to change their ways before these horrid things become unnecessary. Park maintenance rakes up the leaves and mown grass and packs it kerbside in huge plastic bags for collection, the dice are loaded against us.

Meanwhile, here there is no escape from the ubiquitous plastic bag.

So while I fail at the CTWW this week, I do take remedial action.

Update:

Plastic bag use rises for fourth year

 

Monday Moaning

Stop Global Whining!

Everybody is hooked on plastic bags, on plastic packaging, etc. Although we have discovered that plastic bags only make up a small amount of the total pollutants (covered in a previous post), they are among the most visible.

We can find plastic bags hanging on trees and fences, blowing across the landscape, clogging ditches and waterways, choking marine life in the sea; not to mention the landfills are full of them.

Some countries have added a surcharge on plastic bags in supermarkets as a means of reducing their use. This has worked to a limited extent.

But we need to go further.

There is one country, and a most unlikely one, that has banned plastic bags of all types. You even get your baggage searched at the airport arrivals and any plastic bags are confiscated.

Think you can’t live without plastic bags? Consider this: Rwanda did it

As a post-genocide nation with a developing economy, Rwanda could have dismissed the bag ban as unnecessary. But it didn’t

A shopper carries her shopping with free supermarket shopping bags. Photograph: ANDY RAIN/EPA

On a recent trip to Rwanda, my luggage was searched at the border, and the authorities confiscated some of my belongings. No, I wasn’t trying to smuggle drugs or weapons. The offenders? Three plastic bags I’d use to carry my shampoo and dirty laundry.

You see, non-biodegradable polythene bags are illegal in Rwanda. In 2008, while the rest of the world was barely starting to consider a tax on single-use plastic bags, the small East African nation decided to ban them completely.

At Kigali International Airport, a sign warns visitors that plastic bags will be confiscated. Agents from the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) cut the plastic wrapping off negligent travellers’ suitcases. Throughout the country, businesses have been forced to replace plastic carrier bags with paper ones.

The ban was a bold move. It paid off. As soon as I set foot in Rwanda from neighboring Uganda, it struck me. It’s clean. Looking out the window of the bus that was taking me to Kigali, the capital, I could see none of the mountains of rubbish I’d grown accustomed to in other African countries. No plastic carrier bags floating in the wind or stranded on a tree branch.

Upon arrival in Kigali the contrast is even more evident. With its lovely green squares and wide boulevards, the Rwandan capital is one of the most beautiful cities in Africa. And it’s immaculate. Enough to teach a lesson to scruffy – albeit beloved – Western metropolises like New York or London. And the ban on plastic bags is just the start for Rwanda. It’s all part of the Vision 2020 plan to transform the country into a sustainable middle-income nation.

Eventually, the country is looking to ban other types of plastic and is even hinting at the possibility of becoming the world’s first plastic-free nation. Its constitution recognizes (pdf) that “every citizen is entitled to a healthy and satisfying environment.” It also underlines each citizen’s responsibility to “protect, safeguard and promote the environment”.

Throughout the world, many initiatives to reduce or ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags have been halted because of economic concerns. In England, for example, there is ongoing concern that a 5p levy on single-use carrier bags could harm small businesses.

Still reeling from a horrific genocide which resulted in the deaths of over 800,000 people in 1994, Rwanda could have dismissed the plastic ban as an unnecessary hindrance for its developing economy. It could have opted for a simple levy on plastic carrier bags, as have many other American cities. But the authorities’ main concern was the way in which plastic bags were being disposed of after use. Most were being burned, releasing toxic pollutants into the air, or left to clog drainage systems.

Knowing it lacked the basic facilities to sustainably manage plastic waste, Rwanda devised a clever strategy to turn the ban into a boost to its economy. The authorities encouraged companies that used to manufacture plastic bags to start recycling them instead by providing tax incentives. The policy also created a market for environmentally friendly bags, which were virtually non-existent in the country before the ban.

Now in its sixth year, the policy has proved efficient, if not perfect. Rwanda is starting to struggle with a lucrative black market for the shunned plastic bags. The excessive use of paper bags is also starting to raise concerns. But the mere fact that a developing country facing tremendous challenges has managed to enforce such groundbreaking legislation should make us wonder what the western world could achieve if the political will really existed.

Opinion:

If a country like Rwanda can do it, everybody can do it. Simple.

The problem is that we don’t really want to. Everybody moans and groans, and we pay lip service to the problem, but we don’t really want to give up such a convenience.

My message is Stop Global Whining and do it!

Only when we ban them completely will the problem go away.

Just because we can’t see it under the sea, doesn’t mean it’s not there!

 

 

Monday Moaning

Are we on the wrong track?

Have we missed the point?

Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon, bloggers, governments, environmentalist, but have we picked the wrong band?

It would appear so.

Whole cities are banning plastic supermarket bags or charging a small fee. Okay, this is good, but it’s not the answer. Plastic shopping bags are not the villain!

The villain is is the other 99,97% that we are not complaining about, or are, but not so loudly.

The plastic shopping bag is merely the most visible villain.

They are like roadside billboards, seen everywhere, seen in the garbage dumps, seen being blown by the wind in parks and countryside. They are a constant reminder and hence we see them as the villain.

But, here’s the surprise, the plastic shopping bag on makes for 0.03% of all plastic garbage, just 0.03% and we are howling ‘villain!’

Plastic bags: symbol of consumer waste may ignore worse offenders

Campaign to consign polluting carrier bag to the bin of history misses valuable point, say recyclers and packaging firms

Plastic bag use is still rising in England despite wholesale reductions of use in Northern Ireland and Wales. Photograph: Nigel Barklie/Rex Features

The greatest contribution that plastic bags have made to human society is their use as a toilet. In developing countries, the bags are commonly used as a repository for human faeces, where they end up hanging from trees. It is not pretty, and not particularly environmentally friendly, but it is better than the alternatives, of allowing detritus to make its way into drinking water supplies and thus spreading disease.

Still plastic bags are found polluting waterways and ending up in the sea, where they are a menace to marine life. Earlier this year, a whale was found to have died of plastic pollution, its guts clogged up with our packaging castoffs. The problem is so great that there is now a floating pool of rubbish in the Pacific, greater in extent than any other detectable man-made impact on the environment.

So when Nick Clegg, depute prime minister, announced a charge for plastic bags at the Liberal Democrat annual conference, there was cheering among delegates hungry for a new way to emphasise the party’s commitment to the environment. The charge – if it comes about, and there are doubts as to how it will be implemented, and its efficacy as a result – should deter people from using the bags. And in the process, tackle a potent symbol of throw-away consumerism.

But plastic bags are only a small part of the problem. They account for only 0.03% of marine litter, according to the industry organisation Incpen.

The packaging that we all use, in day-to-day activities from buying food in supermarkets to our deliveries from online shopping centres, has a much greater – though less obvious – effect on pollution. A much greater percentage of non-biodegradable litter comes from food packaging such as the wrappers around food stuffs in supermarkets. Moves are afoot to cut that, supported by the retailers themselves, but there is still a long way to go.

Charges for plastic bags have already been introduced in parts of the UK, including Wales and Northern Ireland, so we already have an indication of how the policy could work in practice. Anna Beggs, from Northern Ireland, where the charge is already in force, told the Guardian: “I try to remember to bring my own bags so that I don’t have to pay. If most people do that it will cut down on the plastic bag blight, especially in the countryside.” The charge is 5p, compared with 25p in Ireland.

Charging for plastic bags demonstrably cuts down on their use. A Welsh Assembly official said: “Since we introduced our 5p carrier bag charge in October 2011, bag use in Wales has reduced by up to 96% in some retail sectors and over £4m worth of proceeds from the charge have been passed onto good causes, which include environmental charities such as Keep Wales Tidy, children’s charities and cancer charities. Since the introduction of the charge, people in Wales have changed the way they shop. It has encouraged shoppers to stop unnecessarily accepting new bags every time they are at the till and checkouts in Wales are now full of people reusing their bags.”

The charge is not technically a tax but is paid into a fund that goes to good causes.

Maggie Dunn, a Labour party activist, says that charging for the bags in England, as Clegg has suggested, is overdue. “I support this – it is unacceptable, how many bags we throw away. We need to think about the consequences – they are in the sea, they are harming nature.” Her view is that people will accept the proposed charges, if they are introduced, but that they need to be higher to people from using the bags. She suggests 50p would be more effective.

Despite its reputation as the epitome of extravagant waste, packaging such as plastic films and paper wrappings for food, also play their part in environmental pollution. Companies and retailers that routinely rely on packaging point out that when food is spoiled for lack of preservative wrappings, the environmental cost is much greater than the impact of bags. In India, for example, and other developing countries, the UN has calculated that the spoiling of edible foods means that as little as half of the quantity produced makes it to market in an edible condition. The lack of cold storage facilities and poor refrigeration accounts for some of that, but the waste is one of the biggest factors in making it hard for the world to feed itself – an increasing problem in the context of a global population estimated to top 10bn by 2050, and the need to increase food production by more than half to cater to that rapidly growing need, according to the UN.

“People equate plastic with waste and that is understandable, but what people don’t realise is that packaging has a job to do – ensuring that the product doesn’t get overheated on the dock, or in the lorry, or to deliver the goods in a good condition,” says Jane Bickerstaffe of Incpen.

Take a case in point – cucumber growers, who need to preserve their fast deteriorating food as soon as it is picked. “A cucumber wrapped in plastic needs only about 1.5 grams of plastic in its wrapper, but that extends the life of the product from about three days to at least 15 days, and when you look at the effort and environmental impact of growing a cucumber, the water and the fertiliser and all the rest, you can see we are preserving resources.”

Bickerstaffe is alive to the impacts of plastic packaging, but she urges people to take a broader view than the rubbish that they fill their household bins with. “It is understandable that people do not think beyond their own experience. They take it for granted. But they don’t realise that the vegetable wouldn’t have got to the shop without plastic.” Companies are also taking the lead in recycling plastics, reducing the amount of packaging they use – which also cuts their costs – and finding new materials that can be substituted for polymers. But Bickerstaffe admits: “I don’t think we have the answers yet.”

Read more

 

 

Change the World Wednesday – 15th May

NZ even has a stamp to commemorate early in the morning, I’m sure that’s a photoshop job

I am normally up at ‘sparrow’s fart’, but this morning they haven’t even started yet.

I’m up early because I was listed MIA last week when I hadn’t posted by midday.

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Temptation

This week is a beef-week, but I am doing penance… I was invited to a BBQ on Saturday (beefless week) and I succumbed to temptation… Sometimes it is good to sin.

On Monday, I bought another shark, so Tuesday – Friday, I will pay for my sinning.

I know, I am a terrible person.

Another update.

My goiaba tree growing where it shouldn’t

When I first moved in here and made my little gardens along the fence, a stray goiaba (guava) seed sprouted. I love to watch things grow, so I didn’t yank it out even though it was growing in the wrong place. I let it grow.

It is now quite a healthy brute, and I suspect it will fruit for the first time this season. I am watching for flower buds to form.

Goiaba is a wonderful fruit, it can be eaten, skin and all, straight from the tree, or put in the blender to make a great natural juice that needs no sugar. You must use the filter in the blender because the rock-hard seeds get shattered and make the drink gritty. When you eat the fruit whole, you just swallow the seeds… you’ll only bite them once; it feels like you’ve broken your teeth.

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This week’s CTWW.

It’s a toughy!

Level 1 (The Green Grasshopper) – Eliminate plastic bags. Refuse them at the store and opt for reusable bags instead.

 

OR …
Level 2 (The Green Warrior) – Refuse plastic bags at the market, find alternates for lining trash bins and refuse any food packaged in plastic.

 

OR …
Level 3 (The Green Ninja, Amazing Eco-Superstar and Environmental Hero) – Refuse to bring ANY plastic into your home … no bags, no packaging, no plastic personal care items, no plastic furnishings, tools, etc. The exception will be items purchased for health (e.g. medicines).

I’m more like The Green Worm, some levels below a grasshopper. Plastic bags in the supermarket are unavoidable here in most of Brazil. São Paulo, biggest city, has made moves to ban them, it hasn’t reached Rio de Janeiro yet.

When I am doing a small shop, I take my reusable bag, which also gets used at the local shops. But a big shop, if the supermarket is busy they get annoyed when I asked for a carton/s, so I have to accept plastic bags.

The bags here are of dubious quality, sometimes they are strong, sometimes they bust open under load. This requires the bags being doubled up for security. I am constantly berating the baggers for doubling up unnecessarily, like two loaves of bread in a double bag, the bag is not likely to fail under that load; or using bags when other bags aren’t full, or worse, putting one item in a bag. I hate that.

Trash ready for collection

I do use the bags for my trash, our trash collection system doesn’t have an alternative. If I have an alternative, or a carton, I use it. But if you do have a trashcan, they chuck that in the truck too, nothing is sacred.

Our trash is left on the street. In my block, we have a collection point at either corner. We used to have two wheeliebins, but through rough handling by the collectors, two became one, which became none. This is pretty much standard practice throughout the country. So the plastic bags do get reused, but ultimately end up in the landfill, which is the problem.

The other recycle use, is I give them to Raimundo at the botequim (neighbourhood bar) for people to takeaway bottle purchases.

So at least my bags get double use. Which I know is not ideal, but as Brazil is third world, we don’t have the facilities of the first and true ‘greenery’ is made difficult.

Last week I bought a hammer. I was offered one encased in plastic, I refused it and asked for the one hanging on the display without plastic. They appeared to be the same quality tool, the one in the plastic was double the price of the other. Pay for annoying unwanted plastic… é ruim (like hell).

My new shelves

In a rare fit of madness this week, I bought a new set of shelves for the living room.

I don’t usually buy new furniture, I do with secondhand or makeshift stuff. But I took a fancy to this one and have a corner of just the right dimensions to accommodate it. I love the rusticky finish to it.

It will arrive on Friday as a package, almost guaranteed to be wrapped in plastic with each piece separated by bits of polystyrene.

The assemblers will come on Saturday to put it together.

In Brazil you can’t buy ready-assembled furniture, it all comes in kit-set form and assembled at home, so you have no choice. If the furniture is not wrapped in plastic and polystyrene, the chances are high (given the lack of work ethics of the average Brazilian labourer), that your goods will arrive damaged.

So, I can’t claim Grasshopper, Warrior or Ninja status, I am destined to remain a lowly ‘worm’.

Make you Fink on Friday

It appears as though we are just not getting the message.

Plastic bag use ‘up for second year running’

Waste plastic bags at a recycling plant in South Glamorgan, Wales. Photograph: The Photolibrary Wales/Alamy

UK supermarkets handed out 8bn single-use plastic bags last year, up 5.4% on 2010, say government figures

The number of single-use plastic bags handed out to shoppers by UK supermarkets has risen for the second year running, new figures from the government’s waste reduction body Wrap have revealed. The figures will be a huge disappointment to the government, which backed a voluntary scheme to cut the use if throwaway bags.

A total of 8bn “thin-gauge” bags were issued in the UK in 2011 – a 5.4% rise on the 7.6bn in 2010 – and with every shopper now using an average of almost 11 a month.

It is the second year in a row the number of throwaway plastic bags has risen, although their use has fallen by more than a third (35%) since 2006, when 12.2bn bags were handed out. Retailers have blamed the recession, saying families have changed their shopping habits and are doing more smaller shops every week – often using public transport.

Source: The Guardian Read more

Opinion:

The figures quoted are for the United Kingdom, but I have no doubts that the trend worldwide would be rather similar.

We just don’t appear to be getting the message.

Figures fell initially, but complacency has obviously raised it’s ugly head and the last two years both show an increase, and not small increases, 5.4% must be considered major.

“Your Dad is training to be Carmen Miranda?” – “No, he’s come from the supermarket without bags!”

São Paulo here in Brazil recently brought in measures to ban them from all retail outlets, but within two weeks supermarkets brought them back citing a dramatic fall off in business; customers were saying simply, “No bags, put the stuff back on the shelves!” and walking out leaving their purchases on the checkout and in trolleys (shopping carts, for our American cousins).

Rio de Janeiro has similar plans afoot.At the moment it is not law here in Rio.

Preparing for the event, my own supermarket (not mine, but where I shop) has begun to offer reusable bags. Last night as I was doing my monthly stock up, I noticed them. not because they were just hanging there at the checkout, but because one of the checkout girls was explaining them to a customer as an alternative; he brought and used one saving about ten plastic bags going by the number of purchases he had.

Brazilians buy up big at the beginning of the month

I asked for and got boxes. I can because I use a frete (delivery), but many people can’t because they walk distances or use buses and a bag is essential. Also, here in Brazil we are hampered by the monthly salary, not that it’s much (this month my pay slip was papel de cebola – onion paper, enough to make you cry). Because people are paid monthly, they shop at the beginning of the month; and it’s a big shop, because at the end of the month, they are broke with no money to buy more. So they have to buy big when they can, and they bring more than one person so they can carry their produce home, maybe a kilometer, or two (mile+). For them bags are essential, and the reusable bag becomes more attractive as they are easier to carry than hands clutching up to ten bags (I know, I have done this, it’s murder on the fingers).

It’s easier to do this….

…than this!

Brazilians are also big fans of the trundler, which makes the option less attractive…

It’s harder to fit reusable bags in trundlers

Just some thoughts here about the situation in Brazil. Does your location present similar or particular problems?

Change the World Wednesday – 13th Jun

Last weeks challenge was great, my contribution was minimal, for reasons given in the post.

A common theme I found that ran through some participating posts was veges and fruit in the fridge. Not all veges and fruit should be in the fridge, that’s why they waste.

But first, an idea.

If you find you have surplus veges or that some veges are becoming tired (I loved REWinn’s ‘deflated cucumber‘, how apt) or seem beyond redemption without the aid of the compost heap; make a verdurette. Now there is no recipe for this. A verdurette is merely a blended mixture of aromatic greens with rock salt. Basically it is a vege stock that can be used whenever you need stock, but because it’s salty, you don’t need added salt to the dishes. This also keeps well because the salt is a preservative. You can visit Soup Maker Recipes for more info. Another great write up on verdurette can be found on Kitchen Garden Recipes.

Fruit & Veges

General rule, keep fruit out of the fridge. If you cut fruit, example use a half a lemon, put the unused half in the fridge. Apples and apricots can be refrigerated, but don’t refrigerate avocados, bananas, peaches, nectarines, pears, plums and tomatoes.

Most veges are kept out of the fridge, leafy veges in the fridge (out of plastic) onions, potatoes, pumpkin – out, carrots – in. Once again, cut veges – in.

Check these links Fresh Food Central for some more ideas, and Vegetarian Times for info on ‘gas releasers‘, you’ll see why this is important to consider.

Phew! All that on just one cup of coffee…

Almost a post in its own right.

Oh, the smell of freshly brewed coffee pervading the house, that in a very short time will be responsible for precious moments of transient bliss!

This week’s Change the World Wednesday challenge.

It will be, by necessity brief, I am snivelly and miserable and running on coffee and Coristina-D;

It’s another repeat challenge, but revisiting old themes keeps them to the fore.

This week refuse to use plastic produce bags. Instead, opt for reusable versions such as cotton mesh which are available at many stores, small canvas totes which you may have around … or no bag at all (not all produce needs to be bagged).

Or …If you routinely avoid plastic bags, please commit to a no-plastic week … yep, no plastic … nothing which is plastic, which comes in plastic packaging and, of course, no plastic bags.

Public Enemy No. 1

Plastic Bags

Many of us have little option. For example I shop in a supermarket for convenience. I shop, and get a frete (like a taxi, but not a taxi) home. I pay R$10  ($5) for the privilege. To go to the sacolão (fruit & vege shop) I have to walk there and back, but remember you can’t carry much when one hand is controlling a walking stick. So I am encumbered, and the supermarket, one stop, does me nicely.

But it comes with a price. Plastic bags for everything. Bananas, plastic bag; potatoes, plastic bag; onions, plastic bag; lemons, plastic bag; ad nauseum. I can’t avoid it, shop/produce security is cited. I do, however, get my goods and their plastic bags packed in old cartons rather than use checkout out bags to compound the problem.

I don’t usually have my reusable shopping bag with me, because I stop of at the supermarket on route from work to avoid an extra bus fare. One hand for the walking stick and the other free to grab the handrails in the bus, because once the driver has your money he becomes a closet Formula One driver; and the chances of ending up on the floor are high. So it is impractical to be otherwise loaded, even with a shoulder bag to control as well.

But I do take my egg carton to the local shop for eggs; one bag saved. When I buy one item, I refuse the plastic bag and carry it home in my hand; another bag saved. Actually, one shop has stopped offering them to me; they think I’m crazy, but I have explained my reasons.

Some good news though. São Paulo, a city of 20 million, has just banned plastic bags in ALL retail outlets effective next year and Rio de Janeiro (12 million) is going to follow suit.

Now for a pet peeve…

*Jumps on his tangent and rides off*

You will probably have noticed that when I use the word ‘fruit‘ in this post, I have used the singular. Why? You may well ask. Because the word ‘fruit‘ does NOT HAVE A PLURAL; it is a singular collective noun. If you want a plural, you should use a quantity, pieces of fruit, pounds of fruit. etc.

Yes, I am an English teacher; yes, I am a grammarian; yes, I love my language and love to see it used correctly. BTW, in the main only Americans use ‘fruits’. In English, the plural is used, but only when your are referring colloquially or derogatorily to a group of homosexual males collectively.

Food for thought.

Change the World Wednesday – 29th Feb

The old boot has absolutely nothing to do with the story, but it's still a good idea for a planter

I’m going to leap right into the fray. (It’s a pun, get it, get it?….. oh, never mind)

I only get to do that joke once every four years and you lot (both of you) didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

This is a real Change the World Wednesday, Reduced Footprints fooled me. I didn’t realise that the real McCoy would be integrated with the Dailies.

As a result of my charm and wit, you’ll get two posts today, which I hope you’ll appreciate.

Now, where was I before I started waffling?

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Oh, yes, Change the World Wednesday….

Lastweek’s challenge to calculate your carbon footprint was an interesting exercise. I wasn’t enthused about my result, because I am more conscious of almost everything in this are than are 95% of Brazilians, and yet the result showed that I was waaaaay above the country average and the world target. Quite frankly, I don’t believe it. For example, there are many homes in Brazil that do not use electricity because they don’t have it, but was their candle burning, wood burning cooking and fossil fuel lighting taken into account in the initial calculations?

The challenge this week:

Reduce the number of plastic bags you use by getting a fabric or reusable bag for shopping. Although plastic bags use 70% less plastic than they did 20 years ago, most are still made from polyethylene, a non-degradable plastic. If you live near a brewery, you can obtain 15-20 gallon durable, synthetic grain bags which breweries usually throw away. These can either be used as garbage bags or rinsed out and re-used to take trash to the dump.

I usually do, but sometimes an impromptu therapy session supermarket visit can catch me without my bags, so I have to accept their plastic ones.

I can’t remember if I mentioned that São Paulo state has just banned plastic bags in all retail outlets. Will this come to Rio de Janeiro? I hope so.

Big durable bags

The second part of the challenge, If you live near a brewery… . Oh one can dream. I live a whole 11 metres (about 12 yards) from my botequim (a local neighbourhood  bar), but they don’t have big durable bags; unless you count some of the customers, then we have two. But they don’t drink martinis, mainly because if you asked Raimundo for a martini, he’d just blink at you because he has no idea how to make them.

The chances of getting the bags as suggested in the challenge is remote, because here they are already spoken for by somebody who makes them into carry bags for the street markets and sells them.

They used to cost 50 centavos, but I have seen the price rise to R$1 and now they are R$2. That’s inflation for you.

90% of the people use the supermarket bags for rubbish day. Even the kitchen and bathroom rubbish bins are made to fit the plastic bags.

That is something I must explain. Here in Brazil we do not put used toilet paper in the toilet to flush. There is a rubbish bin next to the toilet for that. You see most of the sewerage systems can’t take the paper. Many of the systems here don’t have sewerage treatment and the effluent often finishes up in rivers; paper would just be an added problem. So the toilet paper goes in the bin and out with the rubbish to the street rubbish collection three times a week.

So, in answer to the challenge, yes, I do, in as much as possible try to reduce the amount of plastic bagging that passes through my house.

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Saturday Satire… ah, on Sunday

Sorry about the lack of posts; MIA for the last couple of days. Story on Life is a Labyrinth.