Sewers, Garbage, and Environmentalism in Brazil

Abstract

Public opinion polls indicate that Brazilians think that urban sanitation isa major environmental problem. Many committed environmentalists agree. And indeed, the majority of Brazilians face unreliable or nonextent garbage collection, scare drinking water, open-air sewers, unpaved streets, and water ways and beaches that are polluted with domestic waste. Despite this situation, Brazilian environmental-movement organizations pay scant attention to sanitation. Most of them emphasize instead the preservation of natural resources and the prevention of industrial pollution. To account for this disjunction between public opinion about environmental problems and the agenda of environmental-movement organizations, we offer three explanations. One focuses on the political context in which the movement was born and on that in which it matured, one focuses on the range of resources movement organizations have at their disposal, and one focuses on the fit between urban sanitation and principles of environmentalism.