The Valle Encantado favela has plenty of reasons to be called that.
Embedded in the heart of the Floresta da Tijuca, the tropical forest that dominates much of Rio de Janeiro, this small community, with less than a hundred residents, is a haven of peace in the midst of chaos.
With stunning views of the city, security - it is not dominated by drug traffickers or the militia - and lush vegetation, it had everything to attract the most adventurous tourists.
This is what Otávio Barros, president of the neighborhood association and local guide, thought a few years ago: “One day I accompanied a tourist on an excursion through the jungle and he asked me if he could bathe in a waterfall that is nearby.
I told him no, that the dirty water from the favela ended up all there.
Not now, with the cleaning of all the sewage the waterfall is clean.
Look at the quality of the water: before it came down gray and stinking”, he explains proudly.
Plumbing structure that crosses the community carrying water for treatment.
Leonardo Carrato
Everything began to change from 2015. Tired of waiting for any initiative from the State, the residents of Valle Encantado, led by Barros, rolled up their sleeves to start up their own sewerage network.
Together, they built a network of pipes that connects all the houses and ends in a dome-shaped cement tank.
There, the organic matter remains at the bottom, while the decomposition gases are stored above.
That biogas is then channeled to supply the kitchens of nearby houses.
A nice walk through the “filtering garden” awaits the water, which is still dirty;
small uneven platforms covered with aquatic plants.
The roots act like a sponge, and in the end, the water, 90% clean, ends up in a sink.
"It's very simple.
Bacteria and plants.
There is no more”, explains Leonardo Adler, environmental sanitation engineer, founding partner of Taboa Engenharia, and collaborator of Barros and the rest of the neighbors for almost a decade.
The system, which requires no chemicals or energy, originated in rural China 50 years ago and has been adapted over time.
In Valle Encantado, the project grew in fits and starts, due to a lack of resources, which were gradually provided by a foundation to promote research from the State of Rio, NGOs and anonymous investors.
After some 220,000 reais (about 42,000 dollars) invested, it already supplies the entire community: the 40 families that live here have stopped discharging around 1.5 million liters of sewage into nature each year.
Before, everything went directly from the kitchens and bathrooms to the street.
Portrait of Otávio in the structure built for water treatment.
Leonardo Carrato
Rozineida Machado, 53, has the terrace of her house two steps from a pond full of orange minnows.
It is a kind of neighborhood aquarium, a symbol of the radical change that the favela has undergone.
“In summer the smell here was horrible, we had to keep the house closed.
It was scary even for a health issue.
I did not let my children go to play in the ditch, ”she recalls.
Other neighbors celebrate that the clouds of mosquitoes are a thing of the past.
Luiz Carlos Silva was one of those who worked to fill the neighborhood with white PVC pipes: “It was very gratifying, I learned a lot.
Now we have clean water and we can demand that the buildings around us adapt to our situation,” he says, glancing sideways at two large apartment towers on top of the hill.
These wealthier, upper-middle class neighbors continue to deposit their waste in septic tanks.
The favela took the lead.
a historical problem
The Rio City Council has proposed to reach 90% of wastewater treatment in 2030, but does not know what the current percentage is.
The current majority company in the city, Águas do Rio, was also unable to specify what the real coverage is today.
The lack of transparency in the data is the rule, but it is estimated that in the State of Rio, around 5.6 million people are not connected to the sewer network.
Among the waters that are collected in some way, 52.8 percent end up in the rivers and the sea without any type of treatment, according to the most recent data from the National System of Information on Sanitation and the Institute Treats Brazil, referring to 2020 .
Portrait of Luiz Carlos da Silva, a resident of the community.Leonardo Carrato
The challenge is monumental, but Adler points out: “It's easy to solve.
All you need is money and political will”, he says, tired of grandiose projects that are conceived in offices and leave aside the talents and real needs of the local population.
Meanwhile, in the Enchanted Valley, public power is neither there nor is it expected.
Barros, Silva and Machado continue to work on their green favela project.
The next challenge is to fill the roofs with solar panels to lower the electricity bill.
Before the pandemic stopped everything in its tracks, sustainable tourism was already seen as a source of income for these families.
When a group of tourists arrives, Machado and his colleagues prepare vegan food based on what they most have on hand: jackfruit, plantain and chayote, pure zero-mile gastronomy, but without fuss.
General view of the terrace of the cooperative responsible for the water treatment project.
Leonardo Carrato
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