INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF WASTE PICKERS

The International Alliance of Waste Pickers is a union of waste picker organizations representing more than 460,000 workers across 34 countries
Supported by Logo WIEGO

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December 13, 2009


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Entre tanto traje, corbata, sonrisa kolynos como si nada pasara y el mundo tuviera todavia otro mundo remplazable que lo estuviese aguardando, los recicladores de india y america latina les enseñaron ante el grito de “vamos a reciclar y no a incinerar” como se vienen ganando la vida dignamente desde hace decenas de años.
Parece de no creer, pero todos los medioambientalistas del mundo y delegados oficiales de las diferentes naciones, no consiguen embocarle al buen recipiente diferenciado de residuos, y toda la cantidad de desechos que producen todas estas personas por dia en el Bela Center (sitio donde se desarrolla las Negociaciones de esta Conferencia numero 15) termina mezclado entre 4 tarros diferentes, para plastico, papel, organicos, botellas y otros.
Es asi que el viernes 11 de diciembre a las 18:30pm, luego de pintar pancartas en carton de cajas recolectadas de algunos de los cientos de stands informativos, los recicladores pusieron manos a la obra:
somos las naciones pobres las que venimos enseñando a como mitigar el cambio climatico; no son los proyectos de energias limpias ni los creditos de carbono las soluciones que precisan nuestros paises con mas de 15 millones de hombres y mujeres viviendo del reciclaje , por eso, los invitamos ahora mismo a aprender como protejer juntos al planeta” comento Exequiel Estay en nombre de la Alianza Global de Recicladores y Aliados.

Fue asi, que colocaron debidamente sobre mas cajas de carton, los residuos mal ubicados en los recipientes, y en menos de 5 minutos consiguieron dejar todo separado para poder ser reciclado. No creemos de todas formas que sera ese el futuro de esos residuos en Copenhague, que cuenta paradojicamente con incineradores de humo blanco por doquier; pero la idea fue dar una enseñanza al mundo de como podrian hacerse las cosas de otra manera: solidaria con los mas pobres y tambien con el medioambiente.

imagenes de David Ciplet-GAIA

English translation by Christie Keith-GAIA:

United Nations dressed in cardboard–Recyclers taught them how to separate waste!

Among so many suits, ties, and Colgate smiles, as if nothing was happening and the world had yet another replacement globe that was waiting in the wings, the recyclers of India and Latin America taught people how they have been earning a living with dignity for dozens of years with the cry of “Let’s recycle, not incinerate.”

It seems unbelievable, but the environmentalists of the world and the official delegates from different nations couldn’t separate their wastes correctly into different bins. So all the waste that was produced by people every day in the Bella Center (the place where the UNFCCC COP15 talks are being held) ended up mixed inside four different containers, which were supposedly for plastics, paper, organic waste, bottles, and other wastes.

So on Friday, December 11 at 6:30pm, after painting placards and banners on cardboard boxes that were reclaimed from some of the hundreds of informational booths at the center, the recyclers got down to business: “We, the poor nations, are teaching you how to mitigate climate change. The solutions that our countries need aren’t the supposed “clean energy” projects (of waste-to-energy incineration and landfilling), nor the carbon markets, since more than 15 million women and men earn a living from recycling. That’s why we invite you now to learn how we can protect the climate together,” explained Exequiel Estay in name of the Global Alliance of Wastepickers/Recyclers and Allies.

With this, they carefully put the badly sorted waste over more cardboard boxes and in less than five minutes were able to leave everything well-separated so that it could be recycled. We don’t believe in any case that this will be the future of such waste in Copenhagen, which paradoxically has incinerators emitting white smoke all over the place, but the idea was to give the world a lesson on how things can be done differently: in solidarity with the poorest and also with the environment.