¡Sería una hermosa escena si el payaso estuviese allí recogiendo su basura!

It would be a wonderful scene if the clown where in there picking up his trash!

stereonauta@gmail.com

Fruta Prohibida | Forbbiden Fruit

¿Así que esta es la forma en que adornamos los árboles de nuestros pueblos? Llamemos esta la nueva fruta prohibida, el que está destruyendo nuestro paraíso. ¿Por qué llenar nuestros árboles de latas y de basura? Sea como sea este imagen encontrada en Heredia centro es muy representativa de una problematica que hay que tratar de solucionar, el mal menejo de los desechos. No quiero recolectar latas de Coca Cola de los árboles, quiero frutas, quiero vida.


So this is the new way we decorate our trees? Let's call this the new forbbiden fruit, the one that is destroying our Garden of Eden. Why trash our trees with cans and waste? Anyways, this foto, taken in Heredia represents a problem that needs to be solved and seen with utmost importance. I don't want to collect cans from trees, I want fruit, I want life.
Salselena@yahoo.com

Plaza de La Cultura

Plaza de La Cultura - Avenida Central, San Jose - Costa Rica
La basura espera ser recolectada. Un hombre busca algún tipo de deshecho que le pueda servir en algo. Esta escena es cada día más y más común en San Jose, a la población parece ya no molestarle y hoy en día obvia la realidad apuntando dedos a los demás en vez de tomar cartas en el asunto.

Central Avenue - Culture Plaza, smack center of San Jose, garbage waiting to be collected. A man looks for some kind of left over or artifact that might be of use to him. This sight is starting to be a very common sight in San Jose, people don't really seem to mind it anymore, they pay no attention to reality and decide to point their fingers at others instead of taking action.

Heredia por media calle. Media limpia, media sucia.

Heredia por media calle. Media limpia, media sucia. Los que crecimos en Heredia estamos orgullosos de haber crecido en una provincia bastante rural, donde no hay que viajar muy lejos para ir a las pozas, las montañas o el bosque. Sin embargo hemos ido cambiando los cafetales y los árboles por centros comerciales, pavimento y basura. En lugar de ir a buscar el aire fresco vamos a buscar comida chatarra en los “food courts”, y en vez de salir a correr y a nadar vamos a pasearnos por los pasillos de las tiendas. Nuestro nuevo orgullo esta en el crecimiento masivo de la zona y hemos ido enterrando nuestros recuerdos con cemento y piedrilla.

El cambio con nuestro entorno se observa también en como tratamos nuestra naturaleza. Por ejemplo, la basura. Sí hay mas recursos para irla recogiendo, pero a la misma vez hay menos cuidados a la hora de irla tirando. Solo basta ir por las calles y ver botellas, plásticos y hasta papel higiénico usado tirado por el centro de la ciudad. Esto se ve todos los días, y todos los días la Municipalidad y otros hacen un esfuerzo por recogerla, sin dar abasto, así que vamos, nada cuesta buscar un basurero, o cargar una bolsita hasta desecharlo en un lugar apropiado. No todo se soluciona con dinero y el desarrollo no debe de igualar suciedad ni construcción masiva.

No hace falta que el olor que identifique nuestra cuidad sea el de la suciedad del rió que pasa cerca de la Universidad Nacional y Plaza Heredia, ni que en lo rieles se descubran los sobros de nuestra alimentación. No queremos que Heredia sea “basura por media calle”. Y si esto se esta dando en el centro, donde todos nos reunimos solo hace falta pensar un poco y darnos cuenta en las consecuencias de lo que hacemos también en las afueras del pueblo. Si en el Parque Central se ve en la fuente botellitas de plástico flotando, en los ríos se ve aun más y las consecuencias son aún más graves.

A la hora de tirar esos papelitos de confite deberíamos de pensar en las consecuencias que esto tiene en nuestro entorno y en nuestro medio ambiente. El esfuerzo al cambio debe de venir de todos nosotros.

Selena Avendaño L. - salselena@yahoo.com

Amenaza a nuestro medio ambiente? / Threat on our natural environment?

http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=990

http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=7120

Dos artículos sobre algunos de los posibles efectos de varias decisiones que se están tomando en la actualidad que pueden ser una amenaza al ecosistema costarricense.

These are a couple articles referring to some of the possible effects of some decisions currently being taken that could mean a threat to Costa Rica's ecosystem.

Extracto de la revista: Bilaterals.org

An Inconvenient Truth

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7302352

Por favor, tomen unos minutos de su día para escuchar esta presentación hecha por la reportera Terry Gross para la National Public Radio (Radio Pública Nacional). Entrevista hecha al ex-vicepresidente Al Gore sobre su galardonado documental "An Inconvenient Truth". Entrevista que fue lanzada al aire en Mayo del 2006. Nunca es tarde para informarse...

Pelase take a few minutes to listen to this podcast. Former Vice President Al Gore has been on the forefront of warning against global warming for many years. His critically acclaimed documentary on the subject, An Inconvenient Truth, is up for Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Music Written for a Motion Picture. This interview originally aired on May 30, 2006. Thanks to National Public Rradio for the feed.

Invitación / Invitation

Le damos la bienvenida a cualquier comentario, fotografía, o información en las experiencias que han tenido con este tipo de temática. Si ven un río bonito crecido en basura, déjanos saber, si van caminando en el bosque y encuentran un pedazo de vidrio, bueno todo esto nos gustaría tenerlo. Nuestro propósito es el de informar a las personas sobre lo que esta pasando, así que si sienten que tienen algo que aportar, por favor! háganlo!

See a beautiful river going plastic, let us know, if you’re walking through the forest come upon some garbage, pull out your cell phone and take a photo, write a note and send us the attachment. Our purpose is to inform people of what’s really going on, so if you feel like lending a hand, you’re more than welcome to do so!

We welcome any comments, photos, or any information on experiences you’ve had with similar issues. Who hasn’t strolled upon garbage on the streets, fast food junk, all kinds of wrappers, cans, glass or even medical products, let’s step up and let’s call these companies attention. Feel free to participate.

Laguna de hule

Selena Avendaño - salselena@yahoo.com

Basura que encontramos al caminar hacia la laguna. El paisaje increíble y lleno de vida, pero a cada dos pasos hay un recordatorio de lo frágil que es la naturaleza. Bolsas plásticas, pañales desechables, latas de atún y sin número de artefactos artificiales. De camino fuimos recogiendo un poco y pensando en cómo podemos aportar un poco para el cambio.
Por cierto, agarren una bolsa, empiecen a ayudar!


This is some of the garbage we found walking towards the Laguna de Hule (rubber lagoon, in the background). There is an amazing view, full of life, however every so often there was a little reminder of how fragil this nature is. Plastic bags, disposable dipers, tuna cans and countless artificial objects. On our way we started picking some trash up and wondering what we could do to help change this. By the way, grab a bag and start helping! Wherever you are.

Some facts: Paper

* To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.
*Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.
* If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year!
* If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year.
* During World War II when raw materials were scarce, 33% of all paper was recycled. After the war, this number decreased sharply.
* If you had a 15-year-old tree and made it into paper grocery bags, you'd get about 700 of them. A supermarket could use all of them in under an hour! This means in one year, one supermarket goes through 60,500,000 paper bags! Imagine how many supermarkets there are in the U.S.!!!
* The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from trees. This amounts to about 2,000,000,000 trees per year!
* The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years.
* When you smell a dump, what you're actually smelling is the paper in the dump!
* Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.
* Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper a year; about 680 pounds per person.
* The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year. Most is packaging and junk mail.
* In 1993, U.S. paper recovery saved more than 90,000,000 cubic yards of landfill space.
* In 1993, nearly 36,000,000 tons of paper were recoverd in the U.S.--twice as much in 1980.
* 27% of the newspapers produced in America are recycled.
* Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!
* The 17 trees saved (above) can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide.
* The construction costs of a paper mill designed to use waste paper is 50 to 80% less than the cost of a mill using new pulp.

Some facts: Glass

* Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of these jars are recyclable!
* The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.
* A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill.
* Mining and transporting raw materials for glass produces about 385 pounds of waste for every ton of glass that is made. If recycled glass is substituted for half of the raw materials, the waste is cut by more than 80%.

Some facts: Metals

* Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours -- or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.
* 350,000 aluminum cans are produced every minute!
* More aluminum goes into beverage cans than any other product.
* Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within six weeks.
* Because so many of them are recycled, aluminum cans account for less than 1% of the total U.S. waste stream, according to EPA estimates.
* During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans are made. * An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!
* There is no limit to the amount of times an aluminum can can be recycled.
* Aluminum can manufacturers have been making cans lighter -- in 1972 each pound of aluminum produced 22 cans; today it yields 29 cans.
* We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum pop cans every year.
* At one time, aluminum was more valuable than gold!
* A 60-watt light bulb can be run for over a day on the amount of energy saved by recycling 1 pound of steel. In one year in the United States, the recycling of steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes!
* Every ton of recycled steel saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 of coal, and 40 pounds of limestone.