NOTE: Where the pictures start, you'll notice they and the text are underlined. I have no idea why and I cannot remove the underlines. I'm supposed to look at the typepad known issues blog. I'm tired of doing that. Don't get typepad. There is much better free blog software available. I'd change if I didn't have so much stuff here already. I am quite cranky now because before this I had trouble with the indent function so I couldn't indent the newsaper article to distinguish it from the rest of the blog.
This is the 65th anniversary of the Diario de Xalapa, one of the big daily papers in Xalapa. To celebrate, the paper is sponsoring "65 Days for Ecology." Yesterday was the first event, and it turned out to be a big one.
Here are some snippets from the article in the Diario today.
"Diario de Xalapa thanks everyone who participated in the first day for recycling that this editorial house organized and that turned out to be a complete success. We collected 20 tons of recyclable material.
"The director of this newspaper, Omar Zúñiga Adán, the manager, Esteban Hidalgo Gómez and the director of Municipal Services, Carlos LUna Escudero, kicked off the day for recycling on the dot of ten this morning, with the sole purpose of helping inthe preservation of the environment and to generate a culture of better use of the environment among Xalapeños.
"...at the end of the day hundres of people had come to the offices of this newspaper bringing their recyclables.
"Some walked, others came in trucks, some in taxis, others in cars, but in the end, the objective was the same, to take part in the first day for recycling....
"Children, teenagers, youngsters, adults and people of the third age (senior citizens) from all levels of society were united in a single goal: to contibute to the preservation of the environment, because this is an issue of interest to everyone: it doesn't distinguish between age, sex or social class.
....
"Thank you, simply thank you to everyone who participated in the first day for recycling that the Diario de Xalapa in cooperation with the city council of Xalapa organized. Everyone made it a complete success.
"By early in the day, dozens of people had lined up to exchange materials such as newspapers, cardboard, glass, plastic and aluminum for some basic food products....[including] rice, beans, tuna fish, soup, oil, sugar, salt and coffee.
"....Zúñiga Adán said, "Becasue we are the ones who live in this city, in this state and on this planet...we can do this for ourselves."
"[Lunas Escudero said]' I am sure that by participating in this project, we will find more ways to contribute to our own well being, and that the citizens will have better conditions in thich to live, not only with this day of recyling, but with others and with further actions which are essential, such as reforestation, which the Diario de Xalapa promotes.'
"[Hidalgo Gómez added] 'The important thing is that people become aware of the need to separate their garbage, and we have seen already that people are doing this, and that every day more and more recyclable material is arriving at the landfill. But the most important thing is that now we shouldn't have to cut more trees and we should have cleaner water.'
He added that by recycling materials, we are working to produce less carbon dioxide and in this manner slow the effects of global warming."
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Growing awareness of environmental issues is certainly not confined to cities here in Veracruz. We were on one of our rambling drives on dirt roads in the mountains when we came across these children's pictures in the windows of the local school of a small pueblo named Cetlalpan.In this one, the odd containers are actually garbage containers labelled "organic" and "inorganic"
And one more:
This is the sign with the pueblo's name and the info about construction of the school. Notice the telephone at the right. This means this town could have high speed internet access!
Here's the church across the street from the school:
And here's a picture from just outside of town to show you a bit of the environment there is to preserve.