Change the World Wednesday – 19th Feb

No major problems this week.

The rain arrived, and we have had three days of cooler weather.

Two nights ago I had my first suco de goiaba (guava juice) from my tree, the ripe guava gave me enough to make a full glass.

Glancing around the tree, I won’t get a fantastic crop, but enough to make life interesting.

You may remember a few months back, I rationed myself on beef because beef is the meat that requires more water and resources than other meats. Making the first and third week of each month ‘beefless’. Well, an update; I am not so rigorous with the beefless weeks now, not that I have given up, rather that I find that beef has taken a lesser role in my diet.

Without thinking about it, I rarely have more than two beef meals a week. My meat now is mainly chicken, pork or fish.

Even when I go to my favourite BBQ restaurant, I find myself enjoying the beef, but also eating more of the other offerings.

My trip to the dairy farm yesterday to enquire about fresh milk, led me no further ahead, the guy that does the business wasn’t in. So I’ll have to return. But the plan is still on.

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On with this week’s CTWW.

This week, pick up litter and dispose of it properly. As you go through your day, pay attention to the area and clean as you go. You might see trash as you walk between your car and your office. Perhaps you’ll see plastic bags, etc. in the parking lot of a market. If you enjoy nature walks, browse the side of the trail. Get your kids involved and take litter walks or organize a neighborhood cleanup of a local park. The idea, this week, is to rid the area of litter!

Well, Small must have her crystal ball out.

I have mentioned that we have lixo seletiva (a rubbish collection that just picks up recyclables) that passes each Tuesday. I now collect all my plastic, glass, metal and cardboard for this collection.

Yesterday, as I put my Tuesday rubbish out, I noticed that there was a lot of plastic strewn around my part of the praça (park) and in front of the bar. So I grabbed a large plastic sack and filled it just in time for the truck to pass. It wasn’t a big job, took me all of ten minutes, but it did clean the area up a little.

The orange posts make the bins a little more visible

The job is not complete by any means.

Last week the council came and trimmed all the bushes that line the praça which made the horrible truth apparent; under the bushes it is literally littered with plastic bottles and disposable cups. I talked with the council workers who were cleaning up the praça and and painting the playground equipment and they have painted the posts with the orange rubbish containers orange to help with their visibility.

But as you can see there is a disposable cup right under the bin. Maybe it was an honest attempt to dispose of it properly, maybe just laziness.

There is a lot of work to be done educating the people here. But, things are becoming better, sometimes you see genuine efforts to put the rubbish in the right place.

 

Change the World Wednesday – 15 Nov

OMG, it’s Friday, where’d Thursday go?

This post will not be my usual VROOM and razzmatazz…

Because my VROOM got up and left, it followed my razzmatazz right out the door.

This has not been a good week.  Read about it on Hold my Pussy yesterday’s post in Life is but a Labyrinth. It explains everything in very lurid detail and gives you an idea why I didn’t get here.

Thursday, I had similar problems without the lunch; I did however manage to take the promised samples of mint sauce to the restaurant, and I managed to get to class. Which is more than my first afternoon student managed.

So we have arrived at Friday, and I am so apologetic at 4pm, writing a Wednesday post. I have never failed so massively before.

It’s 4pm because I have already BBQed, and spent a leisurely lunch three hours  at the botequim (the bar next door to home), and ah, napped. You see today is a holiday in Brazil, Republic Day. Every such day should be commemorated with a BBQ, but before I could BBQ I had to find the various BBQ tools, which meant I had to wash the dishes. Then I pickled some little onions.

So it is not so much a failure, as a series of failures.

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CTWW this week is another different one.

Ignoring the fact that I committed a heinous crime and bought saucepans that were Teflon coated after dire warnings on CTWW -23 Oct.  In my defence, I can only say that steel and cast iron ware is so difficult to come by and these were so beautiful. I am a romantic at heart.

This week find and share environmental good news. This can be successful efforts by other people … government or corporate solutions … school projects … or even small efforts which you’ve witnessed. The idea, here, is to share the positive, to focus on successful actions which give us hope and let us know that our efforts can make a difference.

 

Want more? Here you go …

Let’s help create some good news. Sign this PETITION to abolish climate changing subsidies.

Here, I can only reiterate the local government moves to introduce Coleta Seletiva which is for recyclable rubbish, and apart from my own efforts has prompted the owner of the botequim next door to separate his glasses, plastics and paper, of which he has a lot, rather than throw them in the regular rubbish. I don’t know if our various discussions on the subject led him to adopt this policy, but I have congratulated him on the change.

There is another local government issue. Brazilians are notorious for throwing rubbish any where. In the last two months the Guarda Municipal (that includes traffic wardens and keepers of council laws and general order, sort of police with no guns) have been issuing instant fines for littering. The movement started in the city centre and has spread to Copacabana beach and beyond. The amount of rubbish discarded in the streets has diminished remarkably, by two thirds already. The movement hasn’t reached our part of the city yet, but the effect is already being felt here.

So slowly, Brazil is catching up with the world.

Now, I have just fired up the BBQ again, the charcoal should be about ready to continue the festivities on our public holiday; in fact, I can smell the charcoal through the window…