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Uruguayan Yamandú López is an enthusiastic bird watcher who visits Lake Bajo Valencia, a neighborhood west of Montevideo, Uruguay. “Eleven species choose to live with us at any given time of the year,” he explains. The black heron, black-necked swan and red duck, he said, frequently surprise neighbors. The lake is preceded by a vast ravine which crosses this community originating from informal settlements. “When we were kids, we played here, we bathed and fished,” recalls López, 40, pointing to a bend formed by the watercourse. But over time this has changed dramatically. “It has become the neighborhood dump, because of 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, now clear after the implementation of a municipal government program with the community. “The only way this will last is if we, the neighbors, get involved,” he predicts.

In Bajo Valencia, López neighborhood, the municipality of Montevideo removed approximately 150,000 kilos of waste as part of the Liberated Areas Program, which aims to eradicate landfills linked to the multiple waterways which cross the department like veins. According to the official city hall register, a total of 92,300 tons of waste were collected throughout Montevideo in 760 informal landfills, located on public and private properties, during 19 months.

These tonnes would occupy, according to the municipality, 99 football fields. “The tone of this project is to come back, to always come back. It’s not about cleaning up, saying ‘now take care of it’ and leaving,” says Carolina Cosse, mayor of Montevideo. In conversation with América Futura, Cosse explains that they managed to eliminate up to 2,500 tons of waste from a single location, with machines and staff from the municipality, 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. This involved cleaning the canal, which is repeated every Thursday, in addition to modifying waste collection in the area.

“People in the neighborhoods got involved in the environmental recovery of their homes,” explains Cosse. He emphasizes that Greener Montevideo, the flagship strategy of its management, seeks to address environmental issues in a “harmonious” and “simultaneous” manner. In this sense, he explains, eradicating landfills means working on their causes with different sectors of the City Hall, such as health and coexistence, in addition to those in charge of cleaning and waste management. “We have introduced regulatory changes and increased monitoring,” he emphasizes. Regarding the latter, the mayor assures that her government has imposed fines on several companies for contributing to the accumulation of waste where it is prohibited not to pay transport costs to the final disposal plant in Montevideo. “This is changing,” he says. So far, the municipality has intervened in 760 of the 779 sites identified as landfills of various sizes. Many of them are located in areas where the most vulnerable sectors of the population live, which, in light of the data, have been relegated by previous administrations of the Frente Amplio, a progressive coalition to which Cosse belongs and which governs the capital since 1990.

As part of the Liberated Zones program, the municipality identifies from the air, using drones, the presence of landfills on private properties. He informs his owner and orders him to remove it under penalty of a fine. This is what happened to Eduardo Vega, a 58-year-old lumberjack, who was “very scared” when he saw community staff arrive at his home, in the Pajas Blancas neighborhood, west of Montevideo. Vega explains that he had been accumulating waste for more than 10 years, which he collected himself from the city’s stores to feed his pigs. The municipality detected it via zone, visited it and reached an agreement. “They gave me a month and I took out the trash almost every day, about 40,000 kilos,” he says during a break from work. Vega did not have to pay the fine, although he admits that the best thing was the change in his environment. “I continue to raise pigs [cerdos] but now everything is cleaner. Where there was garbage, now there is grass,” he says. After their experience, several Vega residents joined in the removal of waste from their properties and coordinated its maintenance with the town hall.

Political engagement and environmental education

For Rocío Guevara, master in environmental sciences, Uruguay must implement environmental policies that support citizen education in this area. “The key is environmental education sustained over time,” says Guevara. In this sense, he considers that both the mayor of Montevideo and the national government have experienced ups and downs. “They have very limited areas of environmental education, with few staff and a low budget to carry out actions that have a real impact on citizens,” he says. On the other hand, it recognizes that the country has progressed and is moving towards waste recovery, as reflected in the 2019 Comprehensive Waste Management Law, which is still being regulated. His years of experience also teach him that change will only be possible if citizens feel part of these environmental challenges and if there is effective control of waste management. “It’s a question of clear and long-term political decision,” remarks Guevara, who is part of the Environment Thematic Network of the University of the Republic.

Strategy Greener MontevideoFrom the town hall, it is said that the capital department is experiencing a cultural change in environmental matters. So far in 2024, they show, the municipality has handled nearly 373,000 complaints from citizens via WhatsApp regarding waste. This system makes it possible to report the existence of garbage outside the containers, they explain, which is collected by 174 motorcycle carts driven by former garbage collectors who formally work in waste recycling. “The Liberated Zones team meets every Friday and visits the site twice a week. The response in the neighborhoods has been excellent, which is why I think this project allows us to unite the residents of Montevideo,” explains Cosse. According to monitoring of Consulting teams, the overall functioning of the town hall 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.

Almost a year after removing 150,000 kilos of waste, residents of Bajo Valencia are preparing to dump them biological barriers or barriers made with bottles, explains Yamandú López, to keep light waste in the stream that flows into the lake. They have planted trees along the banks of the canal and hope that this habitat will benefit residents throughout the 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. »