COMLURB, the sanitation department of the famed Brazilian beach city, claimed it collected 320 tonnes of waste from New Year’s Eve celebrations, less than half of the yearly average of 724.2 tonnes from 2018 to 2020.
It stated 167 tonnes were found in Copacabana during a 16-minute fireworks show over the beach, down from a pre-pandemic average of 340. 6 tonnes. “We will have the beaches and shoreline clean considerably earlier than normal,” stated COMLURB director Flavio Lopes, as over 5,000 garbage collectors completed the cleanup before 9:00 a.m.
After canceling its world-famous New Year’s Eve festivities last year because of Covid-19, Rio resumed a low-key version this year, encouraging revelers to stay close to home and scrapping concerts and public transportation. The festivities in Copacabana drew just a fraction of the record three million people from two years ago, as rainy weather added to the dampened atmosphere created by the Omicron variant.
Brazil has registered nearly 620,000 deaths in the pandemic, second only to the United States.