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🇺🇾 Uruguay /Environment & Climate

Montevideo neighbours organize beach cleanups and demand action from city authorities

From El País · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

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  • María Eugenia Siri and a friend spent several hours cleaning Montevideo’s Pocitos beach after finding more rubbish than usual on the sand.
  • Other residents joined them, while the Montevideo government removed the collected bags the following morning.
  • The neighbours later created a WhatsApp group and planned another cleanup in Buceo, as the city prepares to buy new beach-cleaning equipment.

When María Eugenia Siri found unusually large amounts of rubbish on Montevideo’s Pocitos beach, she decided to clean it herself. She returned on Aug. 25, a public holiday, with her friend Valentina, after buying several bags for the job.

The two women worked from 2:30 p.m. until nearly 8 p.m. Other residents approached them, praised the initiative and joined in. “It is saddening, because it is a place that is always full of people and children, and seeing it like that was horrible,” Siri told El País.

It is saddening, because it is a place that is always full of people and children, and seeing it like that was horrible.

· María Eugenia SiriShe described why she and a friend decided to clean Pocitos beach.

Some neighbours said they had been unhappy with the beach’s condition and believed the rubbish had remained there for days. Many asked for gloves and stayed to help collect it. The bags became too heavy to move, so the group left them away from the waterline and Siri contacted the Montevideo government to arrange collection. The bags had been removed by the morning of Aug. 26.

They told us they were unhappy with the situation and that the rubbish had been there for days. Many others asked for gloves and stayed to collect it with us.

· María Eugenia SiriShe described how other residents responded to the cleanup.

The city confirmed that no beach cleaning took place on the Aug. 25 holiday and that municipal staff collected the bags the next day. Its current beach-cleaning schedule runs from Monday to Saturday, combining mechanical and manual work on the sand and other beach areas. Sunday service focuses on follow-up cleaning for newly generated waste.

The cleanup also led residents to create a WhatsApp group for similar activities. Their next planned intervention is at Buceo beach, where they say conditions are also poor. Meanwhile, the city’s environmental team is preparing to purchase new beach-cleaning equipment, including tractors and specialized attachments.

The idea is to carry out these interventions in places where the cleaning appears to have been abandoned.

· María Eugenia SiriShe explained the purpose of the residents’ new group and its planned Buceo cleanup.
About this summary

Originally published by El País in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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