Upside to Rio’s Low-Key New Year Party: Less Trash

This year, Covid-19 forced Rio de Janeiro to cancel its famous New Year festivities, but for trash collectors and the environment at large, there was an upside on Friday: 89 percent less garbage on Copacabana beach.

Municipal waste collectors in Brazil’s party capital picked up just 39 tonnes of litter from the iconic beach during and after its muted New Year’s Eve, down from 351 tonnes last year, said the municipal sanitation service, COMLURB, reports AFP.

Across the city, they removed 194 tonnes of trash, down 75 percent from last year, it said.

“We were ready for any scenario. But congratulations to the people of Rio, who listened to the authorities’ calls to avoid large crowds and stay home,” said COMLURB chief Flavio Lopes.

Typically, Rio holds one of the largest New Year's parties in the world and the morning after is left with a trash-clogged coastline.

But authorities cancelled the annual celebrations this year, including the show of fireworks over Copacabana, as Brazil was devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.

The South American country of 212 million people has registered nearly 195,000 deaths from Covid-19, the second-highest death toll worldwide, after the United States.