Repurposed

Can you imagine sitting down to a bowl of ice cream and reminding yourself not to throw the empty pot away? Have you ever been shopping and chosen one product over the other because the packaging can be re-purposed? What about having your scissors sharpened? Maybe some of you have thought of these things, but for the majority of people living in the USA, we never think about these things. Scissors are cheap and you can get a new pair for really cheap. Ice cream is no longer packaged in plastics like they used to be, so the container is tossed  out. Packaging nowadays is under scrutiny because minimalist is the new way to go.
However, in Brazil things aren't so easily decided.

Coming from the USA, I saw a very clear contrast between the world of consumption which is the USA and the world of resurfacing and reuse that is Brazil.

I remember walking through a large supermarket the first week I was in Brazil. My mother and I were looking for a plastic trash can. We both thought, a plastic waste basket would be a really cheap buy. We were both surprised when we saw the sign... R$10.00. Then written below it was a 10x in smaller letters. I looked at it, I may have even tilted my head in an effort to make sure I was really seeing what was in front of me. It was a small waste basket for ten payments of 10 bucks. Swallowing hard, I thought, ok maybe it is just waste baskets. We moved on to Tupperware... and the nightmare continued. It seemed like anything made of plastic was outrageously expensive.

Over the next week I was able to find some cheaper plastic items which were produced in Brazil, however if they were produced here, they had a very terrible smell. The plastic had the smell of burnt car brakes. It would leave your water tasting nasty. So, the cheaper, made in Brazil plastics were out of the question for certain items.

As I visited peoples houses I started to realize that there were a lot of empty  ice cream containers and used jars stacked and stashed around the houses. Plastic ice cream pots were doubles for just about everything you can imagine. The canned vegetable section of the store gave you even better options. Instead of buying a can of tomato paste, you could buy a jar of it, which was shaped just like a regular drinking cup. There were even some limited edition cups to be found in the corn section.

It didn't matter what it was, I had to learn to think twice about what I was throwing out. For most Brazilians, plastic cups are an unnecessary waste of money. The fact that my house has disposable cups is something most people laugh at, but there are some conveniences I am just not ready to give up. 

Conservation

When I arrived in Brazil for the first time, I remember something that stood out in my mind about Brazil and the people. I was sitting on the bus traveling across town, when I noticed a woman using a hose as a broom. She was literally washing the dirt from the street with the hose. It crossed my mind that maybe there was
something really sticky and it was bothering her, or maybe some dog poop. What I didn't think, was that this behavior was a daily routine.

Having grown up in the western states, I was not unfamiliar with water conservation. We were frequently asked to take turns with irrigation and we were not allowed to use the hose during certain parts of the day. There were workshops and classes about how to conserve water. Teachers taught students how to brush their teeth without wasting water. I remember commercials about leaky faucets and water waste.  It was just common knowledge that you don't use a hose as a broom.

After a few weeks of living in Brazil, I began to realize that the people here have never been concerned about water conservation. Perhaps the torrential rains each year, guaranteed the population would survive from year to year without ever having to ask the "what if" questions. What ever the reasons may be for not educating the people, the consequences are far worse than I imagined.

Most of Brazil has been in a drought for the past year. While the rain didn't fall, the country was still busy making sure the front yard (which is usually covered in tile) was clean. Life was as usual, making sure the fences, sidewalks and cars were all clean and shiny. As the months ticked by without rain, nobody seemed to notice the reservoir getting dangerously low. 

What happened when the water started to run out? Think about it, what would happen if your city ran out of water? Would it be calmly and rationally attended to? Would there be pandemonium? Would it result in selfishness and violence, or,  would people unite and help each-other?  

What happened here was a complete shock to me. I never imagined it would turn out like it did, and with just a minor threat to the water supply.

 At first, they started threatening people with fines if they saw you with your hose on.  If you want to wash your yard, your neighbors yard or the street, you need to use the grey water from the washing machine. Then when that didn't work, they started to ration the water. They would simply cut off the supply to neighborhoods on a random basis. Of course they said the rations were organized but after several neighborhood went for months without water, it was obvious there was no rational to the process.

Next step, the areas where the water had ran out, they shipped in a few tankers of water. The people were forced to walk long distances to get to the tanker and haul the water back home. Obviously it wasn't nearly enough for the basic needs. People were left with no water for showers or washing clothes.

The town next to mine skipped all the stages of withdrawal symptoms and went straight to riots, protests and demanding the mayor declare a state of emergency. Of course he didn't, so they responded with more protests which caused damage to public property. When that didn't get any attention, they started stealing water from the people who had it. There were people and businesses who had hundreds of dollars of water stolen from their tanks. People were waking up to find their tanks had been siphoned in the night.

The elections happened during this crisis and of course it was one of the hot topics to discuss. Everyone pointing and wagging fingers in the faces of others. It was all a difficult thing to watch, a society collapsing because of a general lack of education on one water conservation.

What was it all for?

It all ended this week (at least in the region where I live) with three days of rain. The rains came... heaven opened up the flood gate and let us have it. The poorly engineered streets flooded in seconds; the shopping malls with their duct tap and wire construction opened at the seams and the waters poured in causing people to seek shelter from the shelter; newly formed waterfalls sprang from the light sockets (so pretty); trains stopped on railways which were washed out by mud slides; houses where landlords had scrimped on construction, caved in or flooded... and the people cheered.

Upon waking this morning the newspapers are all declaring the end of the drought. Amazing how 3 days restores business as usual. That's right, let us forget about the complete lack of education, infrastructure, safety and lets focus on the fact that we can now use our hoses to wash our front yards again.

Sigh.