Waste Not, Want Not: Something Rio de Janeiro Should Learn

I'm thinking about adding a few thousand to the price of my apartment now that it technically has a view of water. Sure, it's actually a broken pipe that has been spilling gallons upon gallons of water out onto the sidewalk, down the street, and down the drain since Saturday but still counts!

Obviously though, it's no big deal to be losing a ridiculously large amount of good drinking water. It's not like there are people around the world who would be laying on the ground with a straw just to get a sip. Noooo, not at all. 

And thank goodness we residents of Rio de Janeiro pay an enormous amount of taxes to the city so that they can be prompt about fixing important things. 

I mean hell, if sewage is allowed to leak all over the streets occasionally, why not fresh water too? Maybe it's actually a cheap government program that aims to clean the streets without using any sort of man power. 

Seriously though, I walk by and I think of Haiti and how freaking wasteful this is. 

Get your shit together Rio de Janeiro! Turn off the freaking water to my building if you have to! I'm sure one of my lovely readers will let me stay with them, right guys? 

Pee in the Shower and Save a Tree

I heard about this a while ago but never got around to blogging about it.

A Brazilian environmental group, SOS Mata Atlantica, is encouraging Brazilians to pee in the shower to save water. Hell, invite your husband in and you can kill two birds with one stone.  Save a liter of water and be a little kinky at the same time.

Apparently, "if every household avoids a flush a day, it can save up to 4,380 liters (1,157 gallons) of water annually." As written in this article by the Huffington Post.

Narrated by kids, the commercial circulating Brazil is calling for all people to pee pee in the shower. Men, women, children, Brazilians, non Brazilians, sports stars, etc etc.  It's in Portuguese but is still entertaining, whether you understand or not.  The moral of the story "Pee in the shower!  Save the Atlantic rainforest!"

If the environment isn't enough of a reason for you to relieve yourself where you clean yourself, check out this site for some entertaining points on showering and urination (and also where I found the wonderful intro photo!) Do You Pee in the Shower?

So that leaves me to ask, do you pee in the shower?  Would you, could you?  

Out of Control

My Sindico (spelling?), basically our building manager, is out of control. Well, not really out of control but not under control.

We were notified the day before yesterday that the lights would, once again, but turned off all day.  Keep in mind that the day before yesterday notification was posted after 9pm. I'm in hibernation mode by that point, just trying to get the little monkeys down and get some alone time. I'm not cruising the elevator looking for notices.

So I was notified yesterday. Now here's the issue, our emergency lights in the stairwell die after 3 and a half hours. Say what? That's just plain stupid. And you need power back on to charge them again. I talked to my building manager about this and he said that it's just how it is. I asked him if he really thought an emergency in Rio de Janeiro could be handled in under 3 hrs. Hell no! You can hardly get an ambulance in under 3 hrs!

And let's not talk about the old people in this building. Of course they all live on the upper floors.  We're risking hip breakage with every step down those stairs. But no, we could not rent a generator.  Too expensive. But have I mentioned that he has spent building money on new mail boxes. There wasn't anything wrong with the old one. A customized doormat, new doormen uniforms, tinted front windows on the building, water pipes, new intercoms, plants, handouts on how to save water... daily, etc etc.

I almost distributed handouts on how to save paper just to annoy him, and to point out how obnoxious his handouts are.  His are especially annoying because we are supposed to save water but he has the doormen spraying down the sidewalk in front of the building and outside the gate daily.  Heard of a broom much? And the other doorman makes extra cash by washing cars in the building. Bye bye water.

But he does do good. He deals with the crazy upstairs neighbors. Actually, he deals with the complaints from other people about the crazy upstairs neighbors.  We sometimes get concerned about their safety when we hear things being thrown. My building manager has a strict, and very unBrazilian, it's none of our business standpoint. I'm sure that has benefited us on numerous occasions.

So I will, once again, be AWOL today. I'm already going through withdrawals. Is it just me or has someone sucked all the internet... I mean oxygen out of the building? 

I will be ok! I'll take it one hour at a time.

Sprinklers Rio de Janeiro style

We live in a big city, a big HOT city 4 months (or more) out of the year.  In my day, we kiddies would spend hot days running through sprinklers in the yard.  Hell, when we lived in Florida, my Mom would send us out into the summer rain in our swimsuits. 

Could you imagine that here?!  Cariocas melt in the rain, even when it's 100 degrees. I think they would create social services just to come take my poor children away if I ever let them play in the rain on a hot day.  Heaven forbid if  I let them do it in the mud! 

In their defense, I live in Rio and the mud is probably more feces than actual dirt.

What to do?  I can't drag my bunch to the beach everyday and my building does not have a pool.  I have considered New York styling it and busting open a fire hydrant but, yet again, I would be flogged.  Plus that is just wasteful, and I don't know how to open them anyway. 

So I joined a club.  Oh yes, a country club baby, if you can call it that. It's the Fluminense club. It's more like paying to use a large, rundown common area of an apartment complex.  But you know what, it gets the job done and it gets it done close enough that we can walk there from home. 

I joined this club for one main reason, the shower in the walled-in park.  They have a little shower area, an aquatic park if you will, that consists of 3 showers, a faucet, and a padded floor for the little ones. Of course they took 3 out of 4 knobs off the showers/faucet so we can only turn on one shower. 

Water conservation so we heard.  And it gets a little knock down drag out fight-ish during the peak of the summer when there are 20 kids trying to play under it.  What can you do. It's our sprinkler. 

And the big posse full of kids only brings up more more memories from my youth. Some kids are totally prepared in their bathing suits with towels waiting for them. And then there are kids like mine, who's Mom totally forgot to bring anything. They run around in their underwear, or naked if they are little enough. They air dry while eating a Popsicle on their way home. 

There's screaming and hollering, laughing and spilling of buckets of water over other kids' heads and sometimes the feet of the grown ups.  We big people sit on chairs a couple feet away from the shower, watching and chatting amongst ourselves. 

It's very simple and very pleasant.  And in a weird way, I feel like my boys are getting a taste of my youth, in Portuguese.

Water is life, let's save some

A friend's blog motivated me to write about our plight to save water:  woolgathering.

There are many ways to save some water.  One of my husband's favorite ways is by soaping all the dishes first and then rising all of them. That way the water doesn't stay on the entire time. He's also a big fan of turning off the facet while he's brushing his teeth. He's good like that.

My favorite way is with a gadget.  The day I can remodel my bathrooms I'm putting in a two flush toilet. Practical and fun for the whole family.  Not only do you get to comfortably evacuate your waste, you get to be green at the same time.  We all like a good poo and now, to celebrate the occasion even more, it has a special button.

Yes, your dreams have come true. A special button for that special turd. It uses more water to flush down that pesky little brown fish and less for our liquid gold.  The potty also claims to stay clean longer and give you no pesky tooshy splashes. Sounds like an all around winner.

Check it out yourself:

http://www.greenbuildingsupply.com/Public/Energy-WaterConservation/WatersavingToilets/CaromaDualFlushToilet/index.cfm

and for those who want to modify already existing thrones: http://www.twoflush.com/ 

It's fun and easy.  A friend of mine here in Rio already had one installed in their bathroom. Big hit for the entire family.

Also checkout http://sinkpositive.com/site/home/   (thanks Jennifer)