For those of you who are thinking “Lucas Campodonico – that name rings a bell”, we interviewed the incessant entrepreneur last year about his project ‘Greca’. But this is not the subject of today’s chat. Lucas was one of ten Argentines and Uruguayans chosen last year as part of the British Council’s Climate Generation project, awarding a group of young people the title of ‘Climate Champion’ on an annual basis and providing logistical and financial support to help them get their project off the ground.

Lucas Campodonico (Photo: Lucas Campodonico)

In Lucas’ case, the project is environmental magazine: Ecomanía. He had had the idea for a while, but proposing the project to the Council and then being awarded gave him the push he needed to get it off the ground. The first edition came out at the start of this month, and is packed full of useful information for those wanting to green up their lives.

The contents are a mixture of interviews, featuring cult chef Narda Lepes in the first edition, a focus on biking in Buenos Aires, tips and advice, and reviews of eco-friendly and sustainable products. Central to the publication’s philosophy is that is goes against anything that comes close to ‘greenwashing’ and also the accessibility of the contents: it does not get bogged down in science, and is backed up by a fresh, young design, heavy on images and graphics. It is on the pulse, and cool. And even better: free!

Lucas explains the concept as a “publication whose objective is to give information that allows readers to make decisions and adopt sustainable habits.”

On a daily basis, 1,375,000 vehicles enter Buenos Aires, between private cars, public transport and trucks. As a result, transport is responsible for 38% of greenhouse gases in the city, and 90% of the pollution.

The transport system has collapsed. Part of the problem is to do with the shape of the city – the centre of financial and commercial activities are concentrated along the river, meaning the majority of the transport has to cross the city, from 180 degrees, instead of the 360 degrees in a more conventionally shaped city, with the economic heart in the geographic centre.

Lack of maintenance of the vehicles is another issue, leading to less fuel efficiency, thus generating higher emissions.

Buenos Aires is additionally the noisiest city in Latin America, and these high levels of noise add to the air pollution. According to the World Health Organisation, above 70 decibels, sounds are bothersome, and those higher than 90 decibels are damaging. Thirty years ago, the noise level in the streets of Buenos Aires was between 50 and 60 decibels – today the levels are above 70.

There is hope – in 2009 the first eco-bus with a hybrid engine, between running in the city on line 62. Then just last month the Metrobus began to run from Palermo to Liniers, speeding up commutes with an efficient system. And lest we forget, Macri and his ‘Mejor en Bici’ campaign, aiming to get us all on bikes! That said, there is much to be done.

So what can you do?

• Walk! If you live in the city, pretty much everything you could need is within walking distance, and so go out and use it. Supporting local stores rather than driving to a supermarket helps the local economy as well as being better for the environment. So why not get around on your own energy – it is healthier too.
• Use a bicycle. Yes, it’s still a bit scary, but getting better. A few tips: ride on the left-hand side, particularly on bigger roads, as buses pull in on the right and taxis also cruise there, so you will have a less stressful ride on the right; invest in a bell – particularly useful for those who have decided bicisendas are actually the pavement and want to wander leisurely up them with their backs to you. Or learn to holler “es un bicisenda, boludo/a!” To see a map of the bike lanes and where you can safely park your bike, visit www.mejorenbici.com.
• Use public transport. Sounds obvious, but it really does make a difference. And if  you are anywhere near a subte, it is by far the fastest way to get around the city. Don’t kid yourself and get a taxi thinking it will be quicker – 99% of the time, it won’t be!
• Don’t use the car for short distances – particularly in the city, where your engine is much less efficient – on average double the amount of fuel is used up than the same distance on the open road.
• If you insist on taking your car, share it! If two people were to share a journey of 15km to work on a daily basis, they would save 1.5 tonnes of CO2 a year, as well as around $180 each on petrol. If nobody in your office lives near you, find someone! Two sites exist: www.viajamosjuntos.com and www.compartocoche.com.ar, and you can save money as well as meeting someone new.

Read it and weep, consumers! Did you know that 5,000 tonnes of rubbish goes into landfills from Buenos Aires on a daily basis? And that Ceamse, the company responsible for urban waste management (which has a monopoly over rubbish collection) charges $66 per tonne of waste.

And for those of you who missed Cecilia Cartoceti’s excellent article on the new landfill in Zavaleta, there is more bad news: Law 9111, created by the military junta in 1978, states that 21 Buenos Aires’ municipalities must “exclusively” use the landfill system to dispose of their waste, thus eradicating any hope of recycling.

But it is the national government who is responsible for dictating the minimum standards for environmental protection. These should be abided by in the length and breadth of the country, while each province reserves the right to complement those standards.

In view of that, the national government sanctioned law 25,916 in 2004 to regulate household waste.

And, in 2006, Buenos Aires sanctioned the law 1.854, the so-called ‘Ley de Basura Cero’ (Zero Waste law). It establishes a gradual reduction in the disposal of solid waste through the adoption of a set of measures aimed at the reduction in waste generation, selective separation, recovery and recycling in the city. But this would obviously mean less money for Ceamse, who make a whopping $1.5bn a year cleaning the city.

So what can you do?

• Separate your rubbish for the cartoneros or take your rubbish to a recycling plant. Visit the excellent Donde Reciclo for a list of spaces close to you. It is a myth that if you put your trash out, it will be separated at the plant. In Buenos Aires the rubbish system has totally collapsed and anything not picked up by the cartoneros (and they only manage to collect 10% of all recyclables) will go straight into a landfill – or worse, an open-air dump.
• Stop using plastic bags! They are the most ridiculous waste of time, half the time they break and they are generally a plague in the city. The vast majority end up in landfills, where they take hundreds of years to decompose. While you are at it, you can leave unnecessary packaging behind too – 40% of the rubbish in landfills is packaging!
• Use returnable bottles. There really is no excuse in Argentina – beer, softdrinks, soda… it can all be found in reusable bottles. And as for water, get yourself a filter to stop buying all that bottled water!
• Make your own compost. It is really a lot easier than it sounds and stops all that horrible methane seeping out of the landfills. If all the organic waste is removed, we resolve that greenhouse gas issue, and you have some nice ‘black gold’ (no, not that kind) for your plants. Even if you only have a balcony, you can make compost. And it’s a myth that is smells – if you get your carbon (basically ‘wet’ materials – all kitchen scraps minus animal products and oils) and nitrogen (‘dry’ materials – leaves, paper, nut shells etc) balances right, it should not smell at all. The carbon part will smell, but use two small bins and fill the larger bin regularly. Visit Compostar for ideas on composters themselves, and this useful guide for how to compost. Down the line, I will write a more in-depth guide to this!
• Buy in large packages. A shampoo of 750ml vs one of 200ml means three containers saved. And as 40% of the rubbish in landfills is packaging… well, you get my point. And yes, I realise the 750ml bottle is bigger, but it is still at least two bottles saved from the bin! Which leads me to my next point…
• Use refills whenever possible. Think mayonnaise, shampoo – there is often a ‘soft’ container refill alternative (which is also often cheaper) which saves money and hard plastic heading to the landfill. With some products, you can even go and get your container refilled – like honey. There are many places to do this!

Each week I am going to bring you a fact which will help to lay out Argentina’s big environmental issues, and also what you can do to improve the situation…

Fact #01: Wasted Water

It is calculated that each person on the planet needs between 20 and 50 litres of water per day, for drinking, food and hygiene. But in the sprawling cities of the world, around 250 litres of water is used per person, per day. This figure is high, but pales in comparison to the Buenos Aires statistic: according to Fundación Ciudad, each person uses a shocking 630 litres of water per day, more than double the average for European cities.

The reason for this huge level of water consumption can largely be blamed on three things:

• Public behaviour
• Lack of maintainance of installations
• Problems in the water network

Ok, so you probably can’t do much about the last one, but the first two leave room for improvement on a public level…

Dripping water tap (Photo: Randy Robertson)

Some ideas:

• Stop dripping taps! (a dripping tap can leak four litres per hour, which totals 35,000 litres a year)
• Fix a toilet that is leaking (it can waste 80 litres per hour)
• Don’t leave taps running uselessly: Use a plug when washing up (60 litres can be lost in the 15 minutes it takes to wash the dishes, and a plug will cost you around $2 a most ferreterias); and turn the tap off when brushing your teeth (three litres can be lost in a minute)
• Fill your washing machine before using it – each cycle uses some 100 litres of water
• Don’t use a hose to wash your car – it takes on average 500 litres of water. Go back to the old school bucket and sponge technique!
• Talk to your portero about how the pavement is cleaned – each ‘wash down’ uses an average of 250 litres of water. A new bill passed in Buenos Aires in January which will eventually limit porteros using water to clean the pavement to just three days a week – Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with the eventual idea of phasing out the use of water altogether.

Green extreme: Speak up! Tell people off if you see them let their dogs crap on the pavements and not clean it up: if they clean up after their pooping pups, your building porter will have less of a reason to ‘wash’ the pavements down. Same goes for people who throw litter in the streets – I always find calling the cheeky yet innocent sounding ‘Señor/a, se le cayo algo‘ works quite well. Expect baffled expressions and/or angry glares in response. If you want to go further, pick up what they just dropped, chase after them and offer it back to them, along with your ‘innocent’ phrase. Public humiliation guaranteed. Public spaces belong to us and as a result we should all respect and care for them – if we all treated them like we do for our own homes, there would be no need to ‘wash’ the pavements each morning.

Let me know how it goes – and by all means share your comments and suggestions below! Or write to me at kristie@ambientateargentina.com

For a while I have been hemming and hawing about starting an environment blog, and the more aware I am of the imminence of climate change and the more involved I become in the Buenos Aires green community, the more I realise that there is to say. Both bad – for those the-end-is-nigh types looking for vindication – and good, as I unearth independent, interesting projects that are worth sharing.

I hope this space will be educational, entertaining and above all, encouraging, through demonstrating the possibilities of making small individual changes that can lead to bigger positive changes when done en masse.

So take a deep breath and get ready to green up your life. The world can’t wait for us much longer.