The Suruacá community was one of the first to become part of an extensive socio-environmental regeneration program led by the non-governmental organization Projeto Saúde e Alegría, based in Santarem, in the state of Pará.

Joane’s community illustrates how a coherent community policy, applied consistently over time, has far-reaching transformative effects.

The challenge is, undeniably, a tremendous one. But the Suruacá community is sufficiently organized for an initiative such as stopping the omnipresence of plastic waste to prosper.

Joane’s mother, who is a teacher at the local school, says that when she was a little girl her daughter enjoyed playing with plastic things: "She made small jewels with them, complements for the bathroom, and small pots for plants". Now, making the most of the awareness derived from environmental education, Joane has decided to take action in her community.

The situation began deteriorating when the community's food model started to change and, in a matter of a few decades, went from a diet based on native crops, fruits, fish, and fresh water from the wells and the river sources (the beautiful igarapés), to an exogenous diet, which includes canned and packaged products, soft drinks and bottled water.

Who knows if this situation will be reversed sometime in the future. It won't be easy. But meanwhile, conscious young leaders like Joane generate ideas, lead projects, set goals.

Joane, together with members of the Young Tapajonic Collective, which she helped to found, carried out recently an awareness-raising action aimed at creating an impact.

An added problem to the waste generated by the community is the accumulation of plastic waste on the riverbanks coming from passing boats and from Alter do Chao, an emerging tourist resort right across the Tapajós. The wind and the currents drag the plastic waste to the shore, which every so often looks like a dumping site.

The action that Joane’s group carried out consisted in drawing a gigantic Amazonian three-bridge boat on the shore with plastic waste and then taking an aerial picture of it. It was difficult to convince the community of the soundness of the idea, but when they saw the picture, they understood the reasoning behind it.

"The community coordinator thought that our action was going to harm the community because it would cast a negative light on it, for he believes that this is not Suruacá’s problem, that it comes from outside". It took quite a lot of effort on the part of the young people to convince him, but in the end they succeeded - basically when he saw the picture and realized the impact it would have on the prefecture and other administrative bodies and make them aware of the need to take urgent measures.

Even though the real problem is the lack of solid waste management policies on the part of the prefecture - which is responsible for this matter.

Joane gives prominence to the change in habits that she says she perceives in young people in the community. This is what really makes her happy, particularly when she also gets the approval of her mother and her grandmother, who are themselves fighter carriers of ancestral values, learned from past life practices, much closer to survival in a natural environment, and who see continuity and future in their activist daughter and grand-daughter.

Besides the problem of waste, there is the threat of fire. People in the community make bonfires in which they burn plastics and rubber, generating toxic dark smoke – "not the way to deal with waste", as Joane says. Yet, every family in Suruacá has its own special corner for lighting campfires.