It is the same story over and over again: landfills are bad, they are dirty, they are noisy, and the smell could knock out even a skunk. With almost 15,000 tonnes of waste sent to landfills every day from the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, it is not unfair to say that landfills are the pit of society. But while they are most definitely smelly and unattractive, what most people do not know is that they are also green, and getting greener.

“We are working very hard to manage the garbage,” says Marcelo Vechiati, the engineer in charge of CRA operations at the Ensenada landfill. “It’s easy to complain but when people come here and see the landfill, it changes their opinion.”

Vechiati works for Conestoga-Rovers & Associates (CRA) at the Ensenada landfill just outside of La Plata. The landfill receives 700 tonnes of garbage a day from both La Plata and the surrounding area.

Owned by the State Society for Ecological Co-ordination of the Metropolitan Area (CEAMSE), Ensenada is a very advanced landfill with not only proper treatment of the garbage itself but also the green technology of flaring methane gas into CO₂.

Flaring, as the process is called, is a popular way of dealing with the very toxic methane gas that is constantly leaking from landfills. Numerous sites across Argentina have built flares.

Besides flaring, there is also the even greener option of using the gas for creating energy and finally, the greenest of all, is the new technology of separating, drying, and burning the garbage to create fuel. However, the process of burning garbage remains very controversial.

Flaring Methane Gas

Flaring is the environmentally-conscious process of transforming the toxic methane gas that is constantly leaking out of landfills, into carbon dioxide (CO₂). Although still not good for the environment, in terms of its global warming potential, CO₂ is 21 times less potent than methane.

“Methane is more potent than CO₂,” says the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “When these emissions are compared on an equivalent scale, which is referred to as greenhouse gas equivalents, methane contributes more to global warming.” The EPA has done numerous studies looking at the flaring of garbage.

Vechiati explains that the projects at Ensenada and González Catán are compliant with the Kyoto Protocol. Although the protocol seems to have slipped into that awkward zone of accepted failure, and no one really wants to talk about it, some companies are still trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

“CEAMSE wanted to do something related to the environment and they saw the potential of the bio-gas generated by the landfill,” says Vechiati. “So in 2005 they opened a tender to get different proposals to do something with the biogas; CRA won the tender and became a partner of CEAMSE.”

Canadian company CRA organised the technology to be built at both CEAMSE’s Ensenada and González Catán landfill sites. Now the flaring process is burning more than 3,000 cubic metres of gas per hour.

The methane gas is sucked up from the modules, the hills filled with garbage, through vertical wells that are 16-18 metres deep. The wells pull the methane gas up into a giant tube, which transports the gas all the way across the landfill onto the flaring site.

The gas arrives at the flaring site through a well that is deep under ground in order to naturally drain as much moisture as possible. It is then sent to a moisture filter to get rid of any that made it past the draining system, as the gas must be very dry.

The gas then travels through another tube, which blasts it into the flare. Tubes at the bottom of the 12-metre tall flare release propane which reacts with the methane and oxygen in a combustion process that changes the molecules and creates CO₂. The CO₂ is then released into the atmosphere.

The flare at Ensenada is currently not at full capacity due to construction issues. But Vechiati hopes it will be back to burning close to 6,000 cubic metres of gas per hour in a few months.

Across Argentina numerous landfills have employed flaring, including the landfills in Villa Domínico and Olavarria in Buenos Aires, Salta, Puente Gallego in Rosario, AESA in Misiones, and Las Heras in Mendoza. However, regulations set down by the Kyoto protocol are not internationally binding or imposed by the Argentine government. Whether or not to do something about the environment is up to the owner of the landfill.

Also, although it is a friendlier gas, CO₂ emissions are a big problem in Argentina. According to World Bank data from 2008, the average Argentine created five cubic metres of CO2 per year, which was almost double the amount of the rest of Latin America combined, which comes in at 2.8 cubic metres per capita. The amount of CO₂ emissions has been on the rise in Argentina, spiking from 4.1 to 4.8 cubic metres in just three years. Latin America’s is also rising but has only gone up 0.3 cubic metres in the same amount of time.

Over at Norte III, CEAMSE’s other landfill, three different companies are working on flaring. They are also using the even cleaner technology of energy generation from methane.

From Gas to Energy 

Energy generation is similar to the flaring of methane gas in that it is using the naturally emitted gas from garbage in landfills for an environmentally-friendly purpose.

At Norte III, Multi Ambiente is the company in charge of turning the gas into energy. Norte III, just outside the city in San Martín, is by far the largest of CEAMSE’s sites with around 15,000 tonnes of garbage coming in everyday from the city of Buenos Aires alone, as well as receiving garbage from numerous other cities.

“With the large economic global crisis, and the reduction in the CER [Certified Emissions Reactions] prices, we are rethinking and focusing on energy generation,” says Leonardo Maseiras, the sub-manager of operations at CEAMSE. “This is why we have running in Norte III a 5MW/h plant and are constructing one that will create 10 MW/h.”

CERs are what CRA and CEAMSE are being paid to create. When they change the methane gas into CO₂ they have made a CER, which they then sell to make a profit. However, with the global economic crisis the price for CERs has plummeted, making the expense to create them more than they are worth. Turning to energy generation not only guarantees a profit but is also better for the environment. Various other landfills sites across Argentina are also looking into energy generation instead of flaring.

The use of methane to create energy is a similar process to the flaring of methane. The gas is collected in tubes that are drilled vertically into the modules. With giant vacuums it is sucked out of the hill and carried through tubes to the energy conversion site.

There the gas turns massive turbines that create energy. That energy is then collected and transferred to state-owned energy company Enarsa.

“All the power lines in Argentina are connected,” says the president of Insaap Miguel Suarez, “All the lines are owned by Enarsa. This is a national government agency. It doesn’t matter where you are in Argentina, you are getting the same energy.”

Insaap is the company in charge of contracting the green projects at CEAMSE’s landfills. They controlled the actual building of the flare at Ensenada. They are also looking into waste-to-energy technology that incinerates the garbage itself.

The Tyrannosaurus

Enter the Tyrannosaurus. Although not literally a giant scaly dinosaur, the machine in question has the power to do some serious damage; to garbage that is.

Developed in Finland by BMH Technology, the Tyrannosaurus is the name of the actual machine that shreds the garbage. The shredder is part of a massive assembly line that takes municipal solid waste (MSW) and turns it into solid recovered fuel (SRF) which can then be burned to create energy.

Through various filters and magnets all liquid waste, metals, and organic waste are pulled out of the MSW for compost and recycling. The garbage left is then dried and sent through the Tyrannosaurus, which shreds what is left making SRF.

“The idea of the project is to generate fuel with garbage. It separates the inorganic and organic parts and uses the combustible part to make fuel,” says Suarez.

The end product is “highly-calorific fluff” that is ideal for burning to create energy, either mixed with traditional solid fuels like wood, peat and coal or used alone. Emissions of greenhouse gases are seriously minimised due to the high-temperature burning of the SRFs. This option makes garbage burning one of the most environmentally friendly ways of dealing with a city’s waste.

“This is something CEAMSE would like to do in Norte III but we are only just studying it, it is extremely expensive,” says Suarez.

Besides Norte III the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI) is also looking into something similar for the province of Mendoza’s landfills. They plan on constructing a prototype, which will burn 10 tonnes of garbage a day. The price tag for the prototype has been budgeted at $30 million.

The Province of San Juan is also trying to be the first province to burn garbage by participating in a competition held by the National Ministry of Science and Technology. If their project is picked, a $36 million power plant that is fuelled by waste will be built.

The Politics

Part of the problem with developing green technology at landfills in Argentina is the unknown life expectancy of a site. In order to get funding for flaring, energy conversion, and shredding for incineration projects like the Tyrannosaurus, they need long-term proposals. But like many other things in Argentina, the landfill sites are often subject to political tug of war.

The other problem is the huge controversy surrounding what is essentially the burning of garbage.

The Citizens Coalition Against Incineration was formed in 1995 to protest the original plan to simply burn the garbage with no sorting whatsoever.

“The incineration of waste creates new environmental and health problems, discourages the minimisation of waste generation, and is incompatible with programs for recovery, recycling, and composting,” writes the coalition on their website.

Although many people still balk at the idea of burning garbage today, BMH claims that the burning of SRF is much more environmentally friendly. The gas created from the burning can be used to turn massive turbines creating energy. When the entire process is complete the only thing left is organic waste for compost, metals that can be melted down and reused, and energy from the burning of the SRF. All of this is done with fewer greenhouse gases escaping.

For now, landfills in Argentina are focusing on what they can do: flaring methane gas to create CO₂ and converting methane into energy. Despite being covered in plastics, left over food, and shiny metals, they are getting greener.

“People don’t like the idea of landfills but even if you know nothing about the environment you can see that we are environmental cleaners, not environmental polluters,” says Vechiati. “After all, where else are you going to put the garbage?”

Do Argentines think these initiatives will help solve the rubbish problem? Click here to find out.

Severn Cullis-Suzuki (Photo: Rolf Bettner)

In 1992, 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki took to the stage at the Rio Earth Summit as a representative of ECO (Environmental Children’s Organisation), an organisation she had founded aged nine.

She appealed to delegates and world leaders to consider future generations in their decision making, put an end to environmental destruction and think about social justice justice, saying “if you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it,” adding “do not forget who you are attending these conferences for: your own children – you are deciding what kind of a world we are growing up in.” She challenged them to make their actions reflect their words.

Her short speech received one of the three standing ovations at the summit.

Severn went on to study evolutionary biology, and she remains an active member of the environmental justice movement. She now lives with her husband and two children in British Columbia.

In anticipation of the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development, held from 20th-22nd June, Kristie Robinson spoke with Severn to find out what she had to say 20 years after that famous speech.

How did your presence at the 1992 Earth Summit come about?

We had registered as an NGO at the global forum so we had a booth where all the NGOs were exchanging info. But we were just five little kids in a sea of people, and people would come to our booth and we started giving five-minute addresses. My father is a well-known environmentalist and he gave us some of his time to spread our message. On the final day we were packing our bags when we found out someone had dropped out and we were offered their spot to talk to the plenary session.

How did you feel about the overwhelming response you received?

I don’t really know what we were hoping for, but it really gave us the sense we had achieved what we had set out to. To get one of the three standing ovations at the Summit… and I’ve never had negative feedback on what I said, and that’s amazing.

Do you still stand by your words?

The words are as resonant today as they were then. If anything they are more powerful, because we are still on the same path and now more than ever it is fundamental we make changes.

But you know it’s hard to keep the public’s attention on these issues. We had a good moment in 2004 after a few climate issues got the public’s attention and then Katrina brought weather-related disasters right onto the agenda. But then we had the economic crash and that attention was taken away. I thought with the crash we were not connecting the dots – that fundamentally the same system that has caused so much economic loss is also responsible for the environmental problems we are facing.

We need a paradigm shift. We are desperate for that. Trying to live sustainably in the current Western system is impossible. How is it that in 2012 with all the technological progress we have seen, we created a society where it is impossible to live without doing damage? We need a change where it is not all tilted in favour of corporate rule, and this is not extreme thinking.

What do you think of the term ‘green economy’?

You can’t really say ‘green economy’ – it doesn’t work within the current parameters of the term economy. Humans have always had economies, but we need one that makes sense for the systems that have kept us healthy for the past 200,000 years. Since the Second World War we have focussed on this system that only revolves around economic growth – endless growth, endless markets. It’s just crazy. We need to value things that give us health and pleasure and quality of life – to look at a new system of values rather than simply GDP, one that takes into account natural capital. And we need our governments to help level the playing field so we as individuals can do the right thing. In the current system it’s impossible.

Severn Cullis Suzuki with her young son Ganhlaans (photo courtesy of Severn Cullis Suzuki)

During the speech you spoke a lot about the fact that you were a child and speaking for the children of the world. Has having your own children changed things for you?

It’s changed my perspective – I feel the same passion I always felt as a righteous child growing up, but now I do understand why people were so affected by what I said. The love that a parent has for a child is unparalleled. I am a scientist – I like studying rational solutions, but I think that there is huge hope for saving the world based on the fact that parents love their children. And we have not made that connection between our children and what we are doing to them. Since the beginning of time we have looked to the future and looked down the generations, but now with the rise of globalisation and consumerism cause and effect is broken – we don’t see that what we are doing is directly affecting the health and opportunities for future generations. We need to leverage the love parents have for their children and put that vision back together.

I know people who are choosing not to have children as they don’t want to bring them into a world of climate change.

I think that is one of the saddest things I have ever heard. I think that having children connects you to what is truly at stake – it means you can’t not get involved and fight for what’s right. Having kids connects us to a responsibility to hand things over to the next generation.

And I do have hope that things can be fixed. My mother is a powerful feminist and environmentalist, and she says that from the beginning of time people have been trying to overcome societal break ups and issues that have been hugely destructive to their cultures.

But the issue we are facing today is of an unprecedented scale…

This is a bigger challenge: we are now in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. The last one wiped out the dinosaurs, but it was much slower. We now have one that is directly caused by human actions, and is happening faster. This is a massive global and geological event – one that has never happened before.

What do you say to those who still question climate change?

I have stopped responding to sceptics as those people don’t want to listen. And really, we are done with that debate – it’s real and it’s happening. Now we have to deal with adaptation. Millions of people are now feeling the effects of climate change – it’s on the news, the weather is on the news much more than it was before!

But the connection is never made on air – the connection between the extreme weather and climate change.

Yes, the problem is the mainstream media not talking about it. And that is a huge disservice. They are trying to put a balanced perspective on things that are just not balanced anymore; to show both sides of the story, to keep the public confused. Where in this case you don’t need to show both perspectives – the vast majority of scientists are in agreement, and you will never get all scientists to agree on anything! And when you look into who and what is behind those who are sceptics, you generally find big oil.

The media has to step up and take responsibility for its actions and stop acting like there is still a debate – the debate is over. And by airing the views of big oil, they are really aiding criminal activity: the same PR people who were involved in big tobacco saying there was no link between smoking and cancer who are now working with big oil and the organisations involved in the denial propaganda.

So what should we do as individuals?

We have to do two things. Firstly, reduce our own ecological footprints. And secondly, use our voices. Get educated, get involved. Rise up – be more than you are already. It’s asking a lot of people, but in times of social strife, times of war, individuals have to decide what their contribution will be. We are talking about the long-term survival of the human race, and we have already given up a lot of our options for our future. 

Our correspondent in Rio de Janeiro Daniel Schweimler brings us the latest updates from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development currently underway.

If the future of our planet rests on decisions being made at the Rio+20 conference in Rio de Janeiro then we have reason for both hope and despair.

The irony of sitting in traffic for two hours every morning to get to the conference centre is not lost on participants here to discuss the causes of climate change, one of the most obvious being the burning of fossil fuels in our cars and buses. Although the Brazilians would point out that they are the world leaders in the development and use of ethanol, an alternative, cleaner biofuel.

Twenty years after the first major earth summit to discuss how to reduce the CO2 gas emissions that most agree cause the earth’s temperature to rise, they are back in Rio.

A lot has changed in twenty years. Scientists will tell us that average annual temperatures have gone up. Climate change has become an issue. Farmers, human rights activists, women’s and youth groups, indigenous communities, religious organisations and many more have now joined the debate.

The more people involved the more difficult it is to reach consensus. The world’s leaders haggle over the wording of documents at yearly meetings around the world. It was Durban last year, it will be Qatar in November.

The poorer countries say the rich nations cause the pollution from which they suffer; droughts and flooding get worse every year, therefore the rich should pay.

The developed world has been slow to react and even slower to pay. Some, the most notable culprit being the United States, hardly admit that climate change is a man-made problem at all. And they are the world’s biggest polluters with China catching up fast.

Business now wants to be green with even vehicle manufacturers in competition with one another to prove to their customers that they are the cleanest.

The delegates in Rio have a draft resolution that more than 130 countries plan to sign on Friday. But many environmentalists have criticised it as being too weak. They say it does not oblige the developing countries to cut their carbon gas emissions.

As the helicopters carry the world leaders over the traffic to the conference centre, an alternative people’s conference is going on in a park near the centre of Rio.

Indigenous people from Brazil’s Amazon and the Peruvian Andes, environmental organisations from around the world and an array of religious representatives are here, angry and frustrated at the slow progress being made by their political leaders.

We are still a long way from solving the issue of climate change. But twenty years on we have a much clearer idea of what the problem is, some of the solutions are apparent and more people than ever before are involved in the debate. The debate is raging. But as some of the more pessimistic here in Rio are saying: “The clock is ticking.”

The recent UN Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark was of historic proportions, delegates from over 190 countries and tens of thousands of activists, environmentalists and journalists attended.

But the 12-page accord, pushed by US president Barack Obama, fell short of living up to its potential. The vague language and lack of concrete commitment reflected the failure of the negotiations to create obligatory goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The accord seeks to limit global warming to a maximum of a two degree Celsius rise in temperature. It also states that countries will be responsible for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions but makes no specific targets, dismissing the scientific evidence that says the principal emitters should reduce their carbon emissions current levels by 30-40%. The agreement also makes vague references to a financial aid package that will be given to developing countries, but it is unclear how this money will be distributed and where exactly it will come from.

Jorge Taiana, leader of the Argentine delegation at the summit, explained in an interview to Página 12, that the two main problems with this outcome were the content of the accord, which fell short of expectations in regard to concrete definitions about percentages of actual emission reductions and funds for poorer countries; and the process by which the accord was created, as it was not democratic or transparent and lacked the participation of all delegates.

The agreement was arranged in closed-door meetings between the US, China, India, South Africa and Brazil. The rest of the world’s leaders half-heartedly agreed to consider – but not endorse – the agreement. Later this year a more rigorous and legally binding agreement is supposed to be made in Mexico.

Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile and the Special Envoy on Climate Change for the UN, said that he hopes Latin America will support Mexico in its large responsibility. “It presents us, Latin America with an opportunity to be a leader in the next negotiations facing the reality that in the 21st century countries can and should only develop in a truly sustainable way.”

Rich-poor divide

Throughout the summit the growing divide between developed and developing nations became clear. It is hard to argue the fact that developed nations have contributed the most to climate change but the countries that are already suffering the effects are developing countries.

The Maldives, an island country in the Indian Ocean, faces being wiped off the map, 80% of the country lies a mere metre or less above sea level. Many African countries also say that even a 2% increase in temperature is suicide for them.

The summit provided a forum for many of these issues to be addressed on an international scale. Developing countries are demanding climate debt payment in the form of monetary compensation and the patents to technology to develop in a sustainable way.

The UN’s International Panel of Climate Change chair Rajendra Pachauri said during the conference: “The countries that can really make a difference have not really got sensitive enough to the plight of the poorest of the poor.”

Latin American leadership

Photos by Claudio Sepúlveda Geoffro

Cordillera of the Andes in Chile with very little snow pack in March 2009, unusual for the time of year and a clear sign of climate change.

One of the countries spearheading the call for just climate reparations at the summit was Bolivia. Bolivia’s chief climate negotiator, Angelica Navarro explained to Democracy Now: “Developed countries have over-consumed common atmospheric space. Twenty percent of the population has actually emitted more than two-thirds of the emissions, and as a result, they have caused more than 90% of the increase in temperatures. As a result, developing countries, we are suffering. Bolivia’s glaciers are melting between 40-55%. We have extended droughts. We have in the lowlands more flooding. And we are losing between four to 17% of our GDP in the worst years. That is climate debt.

“And what we are asking is repayment. We are not asking for aid. We are not asking – we are not begging for aid. We want developed countries to comply with their obligation and pay their debt.”

Ivonne Yanez, an environmental activist from Ecuador, one of the larger oil producing countries in Latin America, voiced a similar opinion. “Ecological debt is the responsibility that industrialised countries have with Southern countries, because of historical damages, the plundering of our resources, contamination of our lands, historically and into the present. And if we continue with this system, we’ll be also in the future increasing and increasing this ecological debt.”

Yanez also is leader of the environmental campaign Keep the Oil in the Soil. It is believed that under the Yasuni National Park, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, lays an oil reserve of hundreds of millions of barrels. The campaign asks the international community to compensate the country for keeping the oil in the soil for the benefit of all humanity. But Yanez is careful to not confuse this campaign with carbon trading, which she does not support, but describes this as a “solidarity fund with the industrialised countries”.

Cap and Trade

Photos by jesus martinez

Factory spewing chemical exhaust into the air

Counter playing against the climate justice and climate debt arguments at the summit stood cap and trade concepts.

Cap and Trade, or emissions trading, provides economic incentives for reducing pollutants and it also provides bodies to trade credits with those who pollute less in order to pollute more.  

“Cap-and-trade-with-offsets is analogous to the Kyoto Protocol, which was disastrous. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions of carbon dioxide were going up one-and-a-half percent per year. After the accord, they went up three percent per year. That approach simply won’t work,” said leading climate scientist and activist James Hansen in an interview with Democracy Now.

Annie Leonard, of The Story of Stuff fame, holds a similar critical opinion, as seen in her new narrated animation, The Story of Cap and Trade.

Miguel Lovera, the chief negotiator for Paraguay, is also strongly opposed to cap and trade and does not want the fight to save the rainforests in his country to get mistaken for carbon trading. “We don’t want to submit our forests to a mechanism that will transform them into mere carbon stocks,” he explained to Democracy Now.

“Our forests are much more, are a guarantee to life on earth. They’re the greatest terrestrial reservoirs of carbon. But they’re also home to more than 90% of the species that live on earth, on terrestrial systems. They are home to indigenous peoples. They are sources of water or fresh water. And if they are reduced to just carbon, well, you lose all that perspective, as well. Monetary terms are just incapable of engulfing all those values.”

Sanra Ritten is co-founder of Ambientate, a non-profit aimed at increasing environmental awareness among the general public in Argentina. Ambientate’s first campaign will begin in March.

Internationally, ‘Environment Day’ is celebrated on the 5th June every year. Interestingly, this is the day that the Argentine government chooses to announce the five most pressing issues threatening the environment in Argentina.

Climate change, deforestation, water, waste and conservation of protected areas are all severe issues threatening the country at this moment. Surprisingly, there have been many public initiatives and campaigns asking the government to address these problems but there has been little interest from the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires. Strategies were proposed but never adopted or implemented and there is still no concrete law protecting Argentina’s rapidly decreasing forests.

Despite the persistent problems with places such as the Riachuelo, no governmental action has been taken to stop the dumping of rubbish into the already heavily polluted river. Recycling initiatives started by local scientists and environmentalists are available, but rarely used. (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here)

“There have been some advances, but Argentina still doesn’t have an environmentally aware government,” stated Osvaldo Canziani, a meteorologist and former president of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. The 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace winner says “We already know that climate change is having a negative impact, but in Argentina we still lack adequate systems to monitor the changes in rainfall and other indicators.”

Canziani claims that the government has ignored these issues and brushed off warnings of abnormal weather conditions. He warns that the country has not taken the necessary precautions to minimise the negative effects of climate change which could help avoid future deaths and other consequences.

The deforestation problem has been a constant gripe for the government. Environmentalists and ordinary citizens have protested and petitioned for a firm law. In spite of this, only 20% of Argentina’s original forests remain and money set aside to protect the area “disappeared”, according to Carlos Villalonga of Greenpeace, Argentina. (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here)

Another pressing problem is “the lack of access to drinkable water, the depreciation of the glaciers and the contamination of aqueducts, rivers and lakes”, according to Pablo Canziani, director of the programme for Atmospheric Studies at the Catholic University, Argentina. “The government should develop a better way of managing water for the future”. (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here)

Finally – the problems with waste disposal. Cecilia Allen of the Global Anti Incineration Alliance says “There is already a problem with regards to the overflowing landfill sites and yet the rubbish keeps on coming. There are so many ways to change the way we collect rubbish, in reality you can recycle 80% of waste.” (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here).

With the elections being held this month, such a pressing problem should be high on the manifestos for the hopeful candidates. Yet environmentalists are not happy at the lack of importance given to environmental problems, climate change and global warming.

At the United Nations meeting on climate change on 24th September 2007, Greenpeace representatives called for a global energy revolution with a ‘massive uptake in energy saving and renewable energy technology worldwide and action by world leaders rather than more talk’. The organisation also asked that the worst contributors to harmful emissions stop using the world’s developing countries as an excuse not to act.

Buenos Aires City Council pledged in late 2005 to reduce the amount of solid waste going into landfill sites and the ‘Ley de los Bosques’ was finally enforced earlier this month, but is the government really committed to halting climate change while Patagonia’s glaciers retreat and Buenos Aires’s traffic accounts for 60% of the total number of automobiles in Argentina?

Miguel Vallejo, 57, runs a travel company

I try to recycle plastic and separate rubbish because we know that this planet is the only place we have to live. It will not survive the future. There isn’t an environmental consciousness in what the government say here. I think that people in the interior are more aware that we must look after the environment than people in the city because people in the city are used to a contaminated river and throwing rubbish away without thinking about processing it. I have an environmental conscience but there is much work to be done.

Pamela Lencina, 20, student

Certainly, the global environmental situation seems really very bad to me, but what are we going to do about it? We are all together in having to deal with the situation, we are all the people who should be worried by the problem. I admit that I don’t recycle anything at home, I know that I should but I don’t do it. I don’t know anything about the quality of the recycling systems in Argentina, I don’t see many people who recycle around here. In reality, I don’t see any.

Lionel Roma, 22, student

I think we are going to have to start to do something because the issue of the environment is something that affects us all. Now we are seeing how the polar ice caps are melting in Antartica and other effects such as the drought here in Argentina. All the government needs to take into account is that this problem affects us and will affect our children and grandchildren. I recycle, I am a clean person and I think it’s important to make an effort to keep the environment clean.

Alicia Chávez, 63, retired

The problem is very serious. I recycle some things in my house. I don’t think it’s difficult to recycle, but the decision must be taken to inform people about separating rubbish and behaving in an environmentally conscious way. We throw away rubbish and those who come to look through it take what interests them, but everything is piled up on the pavement, making it more difficult. Certain companies try to keep on the good side of those who say that we are contaminating the planet, but there is no clear intention that things should change.

Analía Rriarán, 26, trainee accountant

The issue of the environment is very important but has remained completely disregarded. Very few people have any consciousness of the problem, which needs to be encouraged in people from right their infancy. The problem is at its worst here in Buenos Aires city. I am from the interior, from the north and in the interior the situation is better than it is here. People take more notice of the problem. I do recycle at home, I take care not to waste water, I recycle plastic and glass bottles, everything.

Photos by Martín Korben