Showing posts with label plastics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plastics. Show all posts

Monday, August 12, 2019

The saddlebags of San Miguel, Cajamarca, crafts to take care of the environment.


The saddlebags of San Miguel, Cajamarca, crafts to take care of the environment. Less plastic in the sea.






The seas are seriously affected by the increasing and cumulative contamination with plastic, which, like garbage, accumulates forming huge floating artificial islands, whose decomposition process can last hundreds of years. Plastics, in many forms (bottles, bags, toys, tools, stands of various products) are disposable and as they are not recycled or treated properly, they inevitably reach the seas. Every second more than 200 kilos of plastic are thrown into seas and oceans; 70% goes to the seabed and 15% floats. Every year 8 million tons of plastic are poured into the sea; It is estimated that by 2050 there will be, in total weight, more plastic than fish





In Peru, year 2018, due to the poor management of waste or garbage, only 0.3% of the bags, bottles, sorbets, technopor and other plastics collected by the municipalities are recovered; 43.7% end up in a dump, rivers and finally in the seas. Of the 950 thousand tons of plastic purchased each year, 74.8% becomes garbage that is collected by municipal workers. 56% of this waste is transferred to a landfill (formal place of storage of the garbage); Only 0.3% of the total is recycled. The remaining 43.7%, equivalent to 309 thousand tons, ends in open fields or open-air dumps, is burned or thrown into the rivers, to end at sea.

What happens in villages far from the coast, in the highlands and highlands of the Peruvian territory? What final destination do the various plastic objects thrown on rural roads have? Do they only have local impact? No, because with the rains, the winds, the plastics are dragged slowly towards the rivers, then to the seas in an inevitable and unstoppable process.




Civic education and the formation of ecological awareness are necessary to address the problem of pollution and minimize its effects. In San Miguel, Cajamarca province, and in other provinces, there is an ancestral custom of using colorful saddlebags to carry market purchases and other goods.


What is a saddlebag?

 The saddlebag is the traditional woven bag with colored threads and original designs used in the villages and rural areas of the Cajamarca region; The saddlebag is a sample of our culture and coherence with the slogan of caring for the environment.





The saddlebag is an inseparable part of the clothing of the rural population; as is the portfolio of women in cities. The countrymen take them to make purchases or daily activities, in friendly meetings to discuss the events of the day, in family gatherings, in public events; always with his inseparable saddlebags.




The saddlebags, versatile and colorful, are suitable for women and men, can be carried at all times and circumstances; always present, as well as hats, ornaments that will never be absent from the dressing room.





Would you carry a saddlebag to do your shopping?

Links to other related blogs:

San Miguel (Cajamarca, Peru) and the charm of small towns

The church of San Miguel (Cajamarca, Peru) - a peculiar architectural work