An Nahar highlighted today an initiative started by indigenous women to clean the polluted banks of Lake Titicaca. It said that under the blazing sun, around a dozen local women pick up cans, bottles and plastic bags in an effort to reduce the devastating contamination of the indigenous community’s sacred lake. The women, An Nahar wrote, come from the villages of Peru and Bolivia close to the highest fresh water lake in the world (at an altitude of 3,800 m), located on the borders between the two countries. The clean-up initiative is supported by a grassroots organization several days each year to remove the plastic, paper, bottles and all types of rubbish. Women wear latex gloves to pick up the garbage and put them in nearby waste containers. It is inconceivable that the efforts of these local women will clean up the banks entirely, An Nahar said, for the amount of trash dumped into the lake in unlikely to be cleared by the campaign, but at least it raises awareness among the locals about the serious rate of pollution. On the subject, Helena Condori, a tradeswoman in a neighboring Peruvian village, told France Presse: “It hurts me that we are cleaning up what others throw away, but this shall not deter us from our work which makes us feel that Peru and Bolivia are more united than ever.” (An Nahar, June 20, 2018)
