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Uruguayan Yamandú López is an avid bird watcher who visits Lake Bajo Valencia, a neighborhood located west of Montevideo, Uruguay. “There are 11 species that choose to live with others at any given time of the year,” he explains. The garza mora, the black-skinned swan and the colorado duck, count, often surprise old times. The lake is preceded by a vast path which crosses this community originating from informal settlements. “When we were kids, we played, we bathed and fished,” recalls López, 40, pointing out a path formed by the watercourse. But over time, this has changed dramatically. “He became the neighborhood basurero, 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, which is being expelled behind the gate as part of a municipal government program with the community. “The only way this will last is if our neighbors get involved,” he predicted.

In Bajo Valencia, López neighborhood, the municipality of Montevideo removed 150,000 kilos of basura around the monument. Liberated Areas Program, which proposes to eradicate the foundations linked to the multiple watercourses which cross the department. According to the official municipal register, throughout Montevideo, a total of 92,300 tons of waste were collected in 760 informal foundations, located in public and private buildings, during 19 months.

These tonnes would occupy, the municipality estimates, 99 football fields. “The key to this project is to come back, always come back. It’s not a question of cleaning, decide ‘now take care of it’ and go for it,” said Carolina Cosse, mayor of Montevideo. In conversation with América Futura, Cosse explains that he was able to eliminate up to 2,500 tons of waste from a single location, with machines and staff from the community, but also with the collaboration of his neighbors. In the case of Bajo Valencia, the project was preceded by community meetings and followed by environmental education workshops. This involves cleaning the channel, which repeats every week, in addition to modifying the collection of the base in the area.

“The inhabitants of the barrios have embarked on the environmental recovery of their place,” explains Cosse. He emphasizes that Montevideo Plus Green, its flagship management strategy, seeks to address environmental concerns in a “harmonious” and “simultaneous” manner. In this sense, he explains, the eradication of basic resources involves working on their causes with several areas of the Administration, such as health and coexistence, in addition to being responsible for cleaning and management garbage. “We are introducing normative changes and greater monitoring,” he emphasizes. Regarding the latter, the mayor assures that his government has imposed fines on several companies for contributing to the accumulation of waste where it is prohibited not to pay the costs of sending them to the final disposal plant in Montevideo . “Eso is changing,” he says. So far, the municipality has intervened in 760 of the 779 sites identified with bases of different sizes. A large part 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 the previous administrations of the Frente Amplio, a progressive coalition belonging to the capital and who has governed it since 1990.

As part of the Liberated Zones program, the municipality identifies from the air, using drones, the presence of foundations in private buildings. Inform your landlord of the arrival and order him to remove it without penalty. This happened to Eduardo Vega, a 58-year-old farmer, who had a “big scare” when he arrived at the municipal staff in his house in the Pajas Blancas neighborhood, west of Montevideo. Vega explains that he had accumulated food for more than 10 years, which he collected himself from businesses in the city to feed his supporters. The municipality detected it through the area, visited it and reached an agreement. “I spent a month there and drank almost every day, about 40,000 kilos,” he says during a break from work. Vega freed himself from paying the fine, although he recognized that the change in his environment had been for the best. “I continue to create chanchos [cerdos] but now everything is more prolijo. Where there was basura, now there is pasto”, sostiene. After his experience, several buildings of Vega were combined with the removal of the foundations of his buildings and coordination with the building for their maintenance.

Political engagement and environmental education

For Rocío Guevara, master of environmental sciences, Uruguay must put into practice environmental policies that improve the education of citizens in this area. “The key is sustained environmental education over time,” Guevara says. In this sense, he considers that both the Montevideo city hall and the national government have remained at altitude. “There are very limited areas of environmental education, with few people and few assumptions to take appropriate actions that have a real impact on citizens,” he says. On the other hand, let us recognize that the country has made progress towards waste recovery, as reflected in the Comprehensive Waste Management Law of 2019, which is still being regulated. His years of experience further indicate 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 political decision, clear and long-term,” said Guevara, who is part of the Red theme of the ambient environment of the University of the Republic.

Strategy Montevideo Plus Green, since the town hall has maintained that the capital department is experiencing a cultural change in environmental matters. in 2024, for example, the community responded to 373,000 complaints from the city via WhatsApp regarding waste. This system makes it possible to report the existence of dumps in containers, which are collected by 174 motorcycles driven by former landowners who formally work in waste recycling. “The Liberated Zones team meets every month and visits the site twice a week. The response in the neighborhoods has been excellent, so I believe this project allows us to unite the elderly of Montevideo,” explains Cosse. According to tracking Consulting teams, the overall operation of the alcaldía has an approval of 48% (June 2023); Waste collection is valued positively by 43%, 28% have a neutral position and 28% have a negative opinion.

Just one year after removing 150,000 kilos of basura, the inhabitants of Bajo Valencia are preparing the installation of biobards or barriers made with bottles, explains Yamandú López, for the retention of waste in the watercourse that flows into the lake. They have planted trees along the banks of the canal and aspire to bring this habitat to the benefit of elderly people throughout the city: “Our space is the heart of Montevideo, so we dream of it becoming an ecological park. We want our neighborhood to be an example of respect for nature.