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The Uruguayan Yamandú López is an enthusiastic observer of the birds that visit the Bajo Valencia lake, a neighborhood located in the west of Montevideo, Uruguay. “There are 11 species that choose to live with us at some point during the year,” he explains. The black heron, the black-necked swan and the red duck, he says, frequently surprise the neighbors. The lake is preceded by an extensive ravine that crosses this community that emerged from informal settlements. “When we were kids, we played here, bathed and fished,” recalls López, 40, pointing to a bend formed by the water course. But, as time went by, that changed radically. “It became the neighborhood garbage dump, due to the irresponsibility of human beings,” he adds. It was the destination for organic waste, broken furniture and the skeletons of stolen cars. López stops in front of the canal, which is now clear after the implementation of a municipal government program with the community. “The only way for this to last is for us neighbors to be involved,” he predicts.
In Bajo Valencia, the López neighborhood, the municipality of Montevideo removed around 150,000 kilos of garbage within the framework of the Liberated Areas program, which aims to eradicate the garbage dumps associated with the multiple water courses that cross the department like veins. According to the official record of the mayor’s office, a total of 92,300 tons of waste were collected throughout Montevideo in 760 informal garbage dumps, located on public and private properties, over 19 months.
Those tons would occupy, the municipality estimates, 99 soccer fields. “The tone of this project is to return, always return. It is not a question of cleaning, saying ‘now take care of it’ and leaving,” says Carolina Cosse, mayor of Montevideo. In conversation with América Futura, Cosse explains that they have managed to remove up to 2,500 tons of garbage from a single place, with machines and personnel from the commune, but also with the collaboration of neighbors. In the case of Bajo Valencia, the project was preceded by meetings with the community and continues with environmental education workshops. It involved cleaning the canal, which is repeated every Thursday, in addition to modifying garbage collection in the area.
“People in the neighborhoods have joined in the environmental recovery of their place,” says Cosse. She highlights that Greener Montevideo, the flagship strategy of his management, seeks to address environmental issues in a “harmonious” and “simultaneous” manner. In that sense, he explains, the eradication of garbage dumps means working on their causes with various areas of the City Council, such as health and coexistence, in addition to those in charge of cleaning and waste management. “We introduced regulatory changes and greater oversight,” she points out. Regarding the latter, the mayor assures that her Government has fined several companies for having contributed to the accumulation of waste where it is prohibited to avoid paying the costs of shipping it to the final disposal plant in Montevideo. “That is changing,” she maintains. So far, the commune has intervened in 760 of the 779 sites identified with garbage dumps of different sizes. Many of them are located in areas where the most vulnerable sectors of the population live, which in light of the data were relegated by previous administrations of the Frente Amplio, a progressive coalition to which Cosse belongs and has governed the capital since 1990.
![The garbage accumulated in the bend of the Bajo Valencia ravine.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/MyXaS9LSkTZBs8rLZ4cAuaXO1JU=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/DFJQEWDICRAOVKERWMFDPSFSWI.jpg)
Within the framework of the Liberated Areas program, the commune identifies from the air, through drones, the presence of garbage dumps on private properties. It notifies its owner of the fact and orders him to remove it under penalty of being fined. It happened to Eduardo Vega, a 58-year-old lumberjack, who got “a big scare” when he saw the commune staff arrive at his house in the Pajas Blancas neighborhood, in the west of Montevideo. Vega explains that he had accumulated garbage for more than 10 years, collected by himself from shops in the city to feed his pigs. The municipality detected it via area, visited it and reached an agreement. “They gave me a month and I took out garbage almost every day, about 40,000 kilos,” he says during a break from his work. Vega was spared from paying the fine, although he recognizes that the best thing has been the change in his environment. “I continue raising the pigs [cerdos] but now everything is neater. Where there was garbage, now there is grass,” she maintains. After his experience, several Vega residents joined in removing trash from their properties and coordinated its maintenance with the mayor’s office.
Political commitment and environmental education
For Rocío Guevara, master in Environmental Sciences, Uruguay needs to implement environmental policies that support citizen education in this area. “The key is environmental education sustained over time,” says Guevara. In that sense, she considers that both the mayor of Montevideo and the national government have had ups and downs. “They have very limited areas of environmental education, with few people and low budgets to carry out actions that really impact citizens,” she says. On the other hand, she recognizes that the country has advanced and is tending towards waste recovery, as reflected in the Comprehensive Waste Management Law of 2019, which is still in the regulatory process. Her years of experience also tell her that change will only be possible if citizens feel part of these environmental challenges and if there is effective oversight of waste management. “It is a matter of clear, long-term political decision,” remarks Guevara, who is part of the Environment Thematic Network of the University of the Republic.
From the strategy Greener MontevideoFrom the mayor’s office they maintain that the capital department is going through a cultural change in environmental matters. So far in 2023, they exemplify, the commune has attended to almost 373,000 complaints from citizens via WhatsApp related to waste. This system allows reporting the existence of garbage outside the containers, they explain, which is collected by 174 motorcycle carts driven by former scavengers who formally work in waste recycling. “The Liberated Areas team meets every Friday and visits places twice a week. The response in the neighborhoods has been excellent, which is why I believe that this project allows us to unite the residents of Montevideo,” explains Cosse. According to a monitoring of Consulting Teams, the overall functioning of the mayor’s office has an approval of 48% (June 2023); Waste collection is valued positively by 43%, 28% have a neutral position, while 28% have a negative opinion.
![Cleaning in the bend of the Bajo Valencia ravine, in the west of Montevideo.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/yHoA6yCGrXznLyMUmz4GwWDNT7M=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/GRCW2L7UQVAIZPSL6UKYXRHY5M.jpg)
Almost a year after they removed 150,000 kilos of garbage, the residents of Bajo Valencia are preparing to place biofences or barriers made with bottles, says Yamandú López, to retain light waste in the watercourse that flows into the lake. They planted trees on the edges of the canal and hope that this habitat will be enjoyed by residents of the entire city: “Our space is a lung of Montevideo, that is why we dream of it being transformed into an ecological park. “We want our neighborhood to be an example of respect for nature.”
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