People pass by and leave trash on the whale. Plastic, in bottles and drums, fills the mouth of the mammal on the esplanade of the Antel Arena. The whale, made with wire, iron and nets, traveled to the Sustainable Uruguay Expo that occupies the building from Thursday 8 to Sunday June 11. But it had already been feeding on waste “all season” on the beach of Punta Colorada.
This is how he explained it to The Observer, Richard Tesore, founder of the NGO that had the initiative: Rescate Fauna Marina.
The NGO has been active since 1990. “Contamination conditions in these more than 30 years have changed so much,” says Tesore. “We went from the animals arriving mostly with hydrocarbons to today they all arrive with problems due to plastic”.
The whale has a sensor that reproduces its song when someone leaves garbage. Also “the people of (the foundation) PlastiCoin give a virtual currency that people can redeem in different businesses”, says treasure
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Rescate Fauna Marina also launched two proposals for schoolchildren. On the one hand, there is a drawing contest, also in homage to Carlos Paez Vilaró’s 100th birthday, with the theme of “Save the oceans”. On the other, a campaign that consists of going to schools and training children; “That they go to work at the rescue center, that they help with the animals, that they learn rescue techniques,” says the founder of the NGO. The intention is to “empower them because the children of today are the ones who, according to all the prognoses, from 2030 they are going to be faced with a real environmental crisis”.
Regarding the proposal of the whale that collects garbage, “The idea now is to leave it” on Pocitos beach or make another exclusively for there.
“We are working for that”, assures Treasury.
When the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, arrives, unlike the rest of the entrepreneurs, activists and innovators that populate the expo, Tesore does not have to introduce himself. The president’s children had been volunteers for the NGO. They just have to confirm that the numbers have not changed since before the president was elected. Lacalle Pou promises him a meeting.
The stand-by-stand tour of Lacalle Pou
The event at the Antel Arena is the second edition of the Sustainable Uruguay Expo and is organized by the Ministry of the Environment. According to Minister Robert Bouvier, it is about “a formidable tool to create environmental awareness”.
The intention is to “give small entrepreneurs who are involved in environmental issues the opportunity to have contact with top-level companies and in turn contact with the population in order to show what they are doing,” he told The Observer.
According to the website of the Presidency, the exhibition has “200 stands of public and private companies.” “Of these, 100 correspond to entrepreneurs from civil society organizations. Workshops and talks are also held for educational centers”, he adds.
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For more than two hours, Lacalle Pou stops at practically each one of the stands. He holds in his hands ecological bricks, recycled glass bottles. She insists on buying, and not giving her, a notebook with birds on her cover. She eats a piece of bread with ghee, a preservative-free and healthy alternative to traditional butter. He talks about routes, kilometers, towns; stops at the usual tolls: selfies.
Also they make him play trivia, faced with a woman who warns him that he has already played “like five times”. They ask them: “What percentage of what is thrown away could be recycled or composted in our homes?“. Lacalle presses the button without waiting for the options. “Wow, no options, incredible,” says the presenter. He gives them anyway: 70-80%, 15% or “everything is designed to be recycled”.
“The first,” says the president. “Well, he answered correctly, 70 or 80% of the waste could be composted,” the presenter replies.
“1 to 0 and I’m leaving“, claims Lacalle Pou and leaves to continue touring the stands. He enters the Antel Arena basketball court. Surrounded by stands of empty seats, the president holds an electric guitar.
Joaquín Bentancor founder of no more butts explain to The Observer What is your initiative? “Together with Teco, we recycle cigarette butts,” he says, once the president moved to another stand.
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A component that comes out of the butts, which looks like cotton, “actually is a plastic called cellulose acetate that dissolves, a new plastic is achieved, which is used to make parts of electric guitars”. They also make paintings with which they decorate later “murals in schools and colleges across the country”adds Bentancor.
Lacalle Pou continues to visit the stalls. Take a bottle of organic wine, open a jar that has potassium soap, neem oil and diatomaceous earth, smell basil at the stall Orchard at home
“Potassium soap, which is a natural biocontroller. You dilute a spoon in water and spray the plants with it and it helps you control insects and fungi”explains Pedro Young of Orchard at home The one that Lacalle Pou took belongs to an entrepreneur from Melo, whose name is Marcela Centena. She worked with Young in the Melo jail, under the Presidency project, sowing, founded by Lacalle Pou’s wife, Lorena Ponce de León.
The president’s delegation, which includes, among others, the Minister of the Environment, Robert Bouvier and Undersecretary Gerardo Amarilla, is joined by the Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, Fernando Mattos.
Lacalle Pou carries a paper bag in her hand. From there he takes out corn with mustard and skin that he just bought from a stand. A group of children from the Instituto María Auxiliadora, of the Salesian congregation, explains a more ecological method with which to make seedlings, before transferring the plant to a pot or to the ground: with egg shells.
Greenwashing and “The Crazy Knob”
At the exit of the Sustainable Expo, Lacalle Pou meets Vice President Beatriz Argimón who has just arrived at the event. The president jokes that she arrives when he leaves, and follows the path to her truck. Before getting on, between the selfie tolls, a woman gives him a book and then walks away.
During his walk through the expo, Lacalle Pou met with those who have a good image of him, the government or the event. Those who don’t or they did not approach him or they were not. This is the case of the NGO Conservation of Native Species of Uruguay (Coendu).
“We make public our election to the non-participation or support of the so-called Sustainable Expo.”, says a statement from the NGO.
“Through the Uruguayan Network of NGOs we were invited to have a stand, which we did not agree to as we believe It is an absolute inconsistency to participate in an activity that supposedly brings together companies and activities in pursuit of sustainability, but that has highly polluting companies that are harmful to Uruguay and the world as sponsors (and also stands), ” continue the text.
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in dialogue with The ObserverMauricio Álvarez de Coendú refers to UPM, whose second pulp mill was inaugurated by Lacalle Pou this week and whose stand was part of the Sustainable Uruguay Expo.
“We found it a shame that a company like UPM, so questioned, which recently had fines for non-compliance with environmental regulations, a company that is based on monoculture forestry with everything that this generates for the conservation of biodiversity is one of the sponsors”, questions Alvarez.
“As is also Ancap, that even if it does its best activity, an oil refinery will never be sustainable. And then we have Unilever and Nestle, two multinationals that for decades have been among the main plastic polluters. And other, They are companies that have many environmental fines in other countries,” keep going.
“The Sustainable Uruguay Expo ends up being a greenwashing facilitated by the Uruguayan government for these large companies”, Alvarez concludes.
Similar arguments presented the groups in Coordination for Water not to participate.
TO this alleged contradiction of the event The woman who gave the play to Lacalle Pou also alludes, in an act “without a stick”, “to see if it sensitizes him”.
It is the debut of Martín Girondo and is called The Crazy Knob. It deals with the conflict between four fairgrounds when one of them discovers a “knob table” with which he can alter conditions, even weather conditions.
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The woman’s name is Nadia Vieitez and she is the founder of the independent publishing house Ediciones La Farola. According to her, she explains The Observer, she and her partner take care of the whole process. They collect and classify the paper bags that they are going to use. They design and sew each one of the copies by hand. When they are ready, they distribute them until the roll runs out. Then they offer digital versions.
Ediciones La Farola, like Coendú, is not at the expo either. He established himself on the esplanade of the Antel Arena with a blanket, some specimens and some stones so that the cold wind does not blow anything away.
