Tomorrow could be too late for acting, we must understand that our tomorrow has already arrived Jaliscos

environmetal record

INTRODUCTION
Today it is necessary to take care of the environment. Many changes have happened since the industrial age. Progress and the use of natural resources without control have degraded the environment. In big cities cars, factories and consumer activity produce a lot of pollutants in air, water and the soil. Cars and industries produce atmospheric pollutants like carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, oxides and particulates. The water is contaminated by organic matter, detergent, and metals that are used in homes and factories. The garbage produced mainly by inhabitants in the cities is a big problem to dispose of in adequate places.

The residue, paper, plastics, wood, glass and metals, are possible to be recycled. Actually in Mexico only 30% of the residues are recycled, the other 70% are disposed of without control producing contaminated soil. One of the residues that is a big problem is used tires because people who dont use the tire anymore, throw them away on the street, in rivers and other places. Some people accumulate tires and many times they are burned producing pollution. A better way to reduce the tires is to burn them in cement kilns but that produces many pollutants too unless it has an adequate emission control.

The responsibility for this problem, should be shared by inhabitants and the authorities. The government has the responsibility to give to the people public services; one of them is the collection of waste. Therefore, cleaning the cities and handling solid waste is a worry the authorities have to solve. The crowding in urban areas and the change of consumer habits are increasing the waste. In the Guadalajara Metropolitan Zone there are four big landfills for the deposit of garbage (paper, plastic, metals, organic residues and others) that the population has generated. These landfills do not adequately meet the requirements for appropriately controlling the garbage.

In general, the strategy to follow, to reach an adequate handling of waste, involves the participation of government, industry, commerce, but first society should have information that permits them to know the alternatives available to reduce the impact of waste on the environment.

The major problems about industrial pollution are the generation of emissions into the atmosphere produced by the incomplete combustion of used oil, solvents, and other caustic materials. The type of activity in the factories is important. Foundries produce a large quantity of pollutants because of the need to use a lot of fuel in the smelting process. Another example is the cement industry. The kilns consume huge amounts of combustible materials such as used tires (this is 1,000,000 per kiln per year and basically this means just 20% of the total fuel) , used oil and other toxic material. When they dont have efficient emission controls, they release pollutants harmful to health.

Air pollution has significantly declined overall in urban areas during the last ten years. There is evidence of a reduction of acute respiratory diseases in children under five. Jalisco has adopted air quality management programes that address pollution by the industry, service and transport sectors as well as environmental recovery.

Reducing the lead and sulphur content of motor vehicle fuels contributed to the reduction of some emissions from mobile sources.

Significant efforts have been made to improve hazardous waste management in Mexico. Treatment and disposal capacity is increasing steadily and rapidly. A system to monitor hazardous waste generation, treatment and disposal has been established and its coverage is expanding. Work to identify contaminated sites has begun, wtih this

Its important to know about the authority here in Jalisco responsable for taking care of the environment: the body in charge for any ecological problem is SEMADES, its mission is to establish public policies in order to prevent and control pollution levels SEMADES has 4 principal objectives:

Institutional Training Environmental Actualization Lobbying for state commitment Ecological regulation and preservation

Principal problems in guadalajaras metropolitan zone

With this information it is obvious that Jaliscos principal problems are:

Population Land and water

In

1985 due to the earthquake that Mexico city suffered, many people from there decided to come to Guadalajara and the population explosion was felt immediately.
Even

though this is just a little part of the huge problem, nowadays we can see how the Guadalajara Metropolitan Zone has grown without any control.
How

many times have we seen new colonies everywhere? They are suddenly built and the worst thing is that sometimes those new neighbourhoods dont even have services like access roads, so that produces bottle necks during rush hours increasing pollution.

ACTION PLAN
We can find a publication on November 13 in the Jaliscos Official Newspaper about the winter plan which is focused on the preventive actions to improve air quality in Miravalle zone (which is by no means one of the most damaged zones in GMZ). This plan is going to be applied from Nov 15 to March 15,2008 and we will mention just the principal actions in every area:

AREA Transport

ACTION
Synchronizing traffic lights along principal Avenues in Miravalle Eliminating unnecesary or unauthorized speed bumps. Creating and promoting car pooling

Health

Working on a vaccine campaign oriented to the most vulnerable sectors (children and elderly) Schools must change their schedules (they should modify break times after 11:00 am)

AREA Urban Order

ACTION Having an efficient tire collection in order to avoid people burning them Cement industry located in Miravalle Zone must replace up to 10% of conventional combustibles to alternate combustibles (tires, used oil, etc)

Industry

Based on this information we might think that our environment is just a governmental responsability but we must all shoulder the burden and realize that weve been damaging the place we live in. It isnt too late to start taking actions by ourselves if we really want to.

Jaliscoauthorities are now opening their eyes and theyre trying to develop the culture we need in order to create better environmental conditions to live in

Bringing it home