• Canada de Gomez Stream

• Plastic Waste

Canada de Gomez Stream

PROBLEM:

The stream of Canada de Gomez is located in Santa Fe, Argentina. It is the only natural waterway that crosses our city. The stream's natural beauty and condition has been spoiled due to overcrowding and the creation of a public dump near the stream. Industries have dumped in toxins. There is also untreated sewage. The pollution has destroyed what was natural and it no longer provides citizens with the quality activities that the stream used to provide.

The stream impacts our city socially and economically. The citizens who live near the stream suffer periodically from overflow. In November 22nd 2000, a catastrophic flood impacted citizens near and far from the stream. The flood was caused in part by the poor hydraulic system used to manage the stream.

Our school has worked to improve the condition of the stream for the last 10 years. Although problems continue, there have been some changes related to industrial use and sewage treatment. The local community, schools, city government and local citizens have worked together to improve the condition of the stream. Projects to clean the stream have been based on observations and opinions that are designed to improve water quality. It has not been an easy task because it is a social problem as well as a water quality problem. People are divided on how best to solve the problems related to the stream. This makes it difficult for the people in power to make decisions.

SOLUTIONS:

1. Create Public Awareness campaigns designed to education people about proper use and care for the stream.
2. Forbid the local tannery from polluting the stream by preventing them from dumping liquid toxins in to the stream.
3. Create new laws to protect the stream and make sure that they are carried out.
4. Take measures to prevent flooding.

THEMATIC PROBLEMS:

1. The stream has urban and social impacts.
2. People that live on the side of the stream are victims of discrimination.
3. The rights of people/citizens are not respected when the stream is polluted. An intense social situation exists because of the streams many environmental problems.

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Plastic Waste Argentina

P.A.I.R. (Environmental Integrated and Regional Project)

I ) The constant worry in time for the conservation of our environment and our life quality was the trigger for our investigations through local projects and paper recycling of plastic wastes of different origins.

1. To obtain raw material for local and regional industries.
2. To integrate Economy with Ecology.
3. To generate work posts

Because they generate air and ground pollution. Apart from that they are elements that affect cleanliness in the city and green spaces which causes extra high costs to our town hall, Rubbish dump pollutiion due to the plastic non-recycling. This is solved burning them and provocking toxic smoke.
Facing this problem the PAIR Project was organized.

II) PAIR is a global project of development support which allows us to integraate Ecology with Economy and giving Economical value to the waste through its recycling.
Due to that it is raw material at a low price. Plastics are recycled as posts, chairs, benches, walls, furniture, strips, lamps posts, etc., and we made contact whit an industry which designs a movable prototype for this task in order to have an idea of how much plastic a person or an ordinary family throws away (4 people) we did a daily and weekly cotrol, through the classification of different kinds of plastic.

III)

• The illegal and legal dumps grow.
• The city and the surrounding s higienics aspect are damage.
• The traffic is affected where the dumps are placed near the routes due to the waste burning causing terrible accidents because of the smoke.

IV)

1. The people's ignorance of the negative aspects of the plastic waste.
2. Lack of knowledge of the damage caused by home plastic containers.
3. The high amount of plastic due to the time for its degradation. 4) Lack of high technology for re-use of plastic waste. 5) lack of National and Provincial environmental advertisments promoting the improvement of the life quality.

V)
Solutions

• Environmental advertisments though operative group made up of students and neighbours.
• Avoid the prolifetation of non-return containers.
• Clasification of home waste in order to recover plastic (a raw material).
• To Demand industrial men the use of retornable containers.