Brazil is very known for its soccer, emerging economy, beautiful beaches and one of the most famous parties in the world: the Carnival. This festivity, which lasts for 4 consecutive days, is the largest national holiday and attracts tourists from all over the world. 

Many Carnival parties take place in the streets and at the beaches. Due to this reason, a trail of trash is normally left, polluting not only the coastline but also the ocean. The picture posted in this article is a real photo of the trash found in the ocean during Brazilian’s Carnival this year.

In order to clean the debris left in the beaches and in the sea, many Brazilian organizations promote special clean up actions with local divers during the Carnival season. In one of the main Brazilian Carnival cities, Salvador, the diving school Galeao Sacramento organized a group of divers to clean the debris left in the sea during this period. The action will take place every day from February 6 to 15. This last Friday I had the chance to talk with Bruno Souza, who is the director of Galeao Sacramento`s diving school, regarding this action:

Bruno, is this the first time you are organizing an action like this?

No, it is actually the second time. We organized one last September. Nevertheless, this is the first time we are promoting this action during the Carnival season. Salvador is a Carnival city and we all know how trashy the city gets during this period. Unfortunately, a good part of the trash left in the beaches ends up in the sea, where the regular street cleaners cannot reach.

Who will participate in this particular action?

Mainly divers, scientists, biologists, geologists, students and college teachers. In total, there are 25 participants in this action.

What is the importance of actions like this?

The main concern is regarding benthic waste, which is the debris left in the bottom of the ocean. This type of trash threatens the life of many marine species, impacting the ecosystem that we have in the Brazilian coast and therefore impacting some local economies that depend on the fishing industry. We urgently need to increase the environmental consciousness of the population once they are completely unaware of the impact they are causing to themselves with the trash left.

And what did you find so far?

Mainly beer cans. Thousands of them I would say. We also found plastic bottles and cloth material.