{"id":33775,"date":"2016-10-31T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=33775"},"modified":"2016-11-01T10:37:30","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T13:37:30","slug":"rios-zero-waste-week-convenes-community-environmental-leaders-to-share-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=33775","title":{"rendered":"Rio’s Zero Waste Week Convenes Community Environmental Leaders to Share Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Students, professors, professionals, and civil society actors gathered last\u00a0week in Rio de Janeiro for Semana Lixo Zero<\/a>, or Zero Waste Week. Led by the non-profit Instituto Lixo Zero Brasil<\/a>, attendees participated in discussions, presentations, and workshops over the nine-day program running from October 21 to October 30.\u00a0This is the second official year<\/a> that the city of Rio has organized a Zero Waste Week.<\/p>\n

Various types of community organizations were included in Zero Waste Week. In the words of the organizers, the aim is to \u201cpromote activities that address the management of solid waste and the concept of Zero Waste in diverse segments of society.\u201d The Rio event emphasized community-based solutions<\/a> and dedicated a significant amount of time to discussing issues of waste management<\/a> in favelas.<\/p>\n

\"Presenting<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, October 26, Zero Waste Week held a gathering on Zero Waste Communities: Sharing Solutions<\/a>\u00a0at the Justice Museum. The ten presentations shared with the group of 60 attendees ranged from non-profits and community collectives to social ventures, and\u00a0were all connected through their focus on promoting environmental sustainability in Rio\u2019s favelas and peripheral neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Event organizer Egeu Laus began the session with an overview of trash issues<\/a> in favelas. A concrete estimate of the amount of trash existing in favelas is lacking and presents a substantial barrier to designing comprehensive solutions. However, an accepted statistic by the Zero Waste Institute of Brazil is that 85 tons of waste daily are removed from Rocinha<\/a>, Rio’s largest single favela.<\/p>\n

The concept\u00a0of Zero Waste in favelas\u00a0is not only to serve an aesthetic purpose. Improper waste disposal in favelas can cause soil and water contamination and obstruct infrastructure. It also furthers the spread of diseases by attracting rodents; Laus cites that 60% of rats living in Rio\u2019s favelas have been infected by leptospirosis.<\/p>\n

Favela residents must be the principal agents of change in moving toward environmental sustainability. The ten presenting projects at Zero Waste Communities: Sharing Solutions embody this philosophy, stemming from a locally identified need and working\u00a0with residents to achieve success.<\/p>\n

\"Cleusa<\/a><\/p>\n

In Rio das Pedras<\/a>, in Rio’s\u00a0West Zone<\/a>, the Projeto Patrulhinha da Limpeza<\/a> (Cleaning Patrol Project) models the power of community organizing. The project involves youth as community educators, patrolling the streets<\/a> to prevent littering and posting public notices where garbage\u00a0remains. Rio das Pedras was widely considered one of the dirtiest\u00a0neighborhoods in Jacarepagu\u00e1<\/a>, but the Cleaning Patrol Project has drastically reduced the amount of trash in the community.<\/p>\n

Projeto Viva Bairro<\/a>, another community project presenter at Zero Waste Communities: Sharing Solutions, <\/em>works with neighborhood associations in communities including Tabajaras<\/a> and Cabritos<\/a> in the South Zone<\/a>, and in M\u00e9ier and Tijuca<\/a> in the North Zone<\/a> to complete projects in urban agriculture, environmental education, and artistic expression. In addition to Rio de Janeiro, Projeto Viva Bairro operates in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n

\n

Eight other organizations were also present to speak about their work. They ranged from social collectives such as the horticulture group\u00a0Planta na Rua RJ Jardinagem Social<\/a>, the\u00a0Eco-Store Collective\u2013Solidarity Exchange Fair Project<\/a>\u00a0(Coletivo Ecoloja\u2013Feira de Trocas Solid\u00e1rias), the\u00a0Pavuna Green Valley Project<\/a>\u00a0(Projeto Verde Vale da Pavuna),\u00a0Project Recycle-Action<\/a>\u00a0(Projeto ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o), and\u00a0Project Zero Oil<\/a>\u00a0(Projeto \u00d3leo Zero), to social enterprises such as\u00a0CARPE Projetos Socioambientais<\/a>, and\u00a0civil society organizations such as the\u00a0Environmental Committee of\u00a0Jacarepagu\u00e1<\/a>\u00a0(Comiss\u00e3o de Meio Ambiente de Jacarepagu\u00e1) and the\u00a0Guardians of Gaya Institute<\/a>\u00a0(Instituto Guardi\u00f5es de Gaya).<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

The energy and constructive community solutions brought by the participants and presenters at the October 26 event bode well for the future of Rio\u2019s favelas as increased attention is placed on developing a collaborative rather than vertical strategy and on prioritizing social impact when working to advance urban environmental sustainability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Students, professors, professionals, and civil society actors gathered last\u00a0week in Rio de Janeiro for Semana Lixo Zero, or Zero Waste Week. Led by the non-profit Instituto Lixo Zero Brasil, attendees participated […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":33780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1290,1333,329,452,1329],"tags":[258,474,385,386,989,37,1445,12,1403,156,471,784,1350,692,1140,21,470],"writer":[2212],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-civilsociety","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-solutions","11":"category-rio20","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-community-solution","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-environmental-education","16":"tag-trash","17":"tag-morro-dos-cabritos","18":"tag-north-zone","19":"tag-rio-das-pedras","20":"tag-rocinha","21":"tag-solution","22":"tag-south-zone","23":"tag-sustainability","24":"tag-tabajaras","25":"tag-tijuca","26":"tag-trash-collection","27":"tag-waste-management","28":"tag-west-zone","29":"tag-zero-waste","30":"writer-laura-fairman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33775"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=33775"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=33775"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=33775"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=33775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}