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In forming our protest group UnChileMasLimpio, we have focused on the amount of waste
produced by people, the low percentage that is recycled and the lack of help and education given
by the government, as the main causes for our direct action /civil disobedience.

Chile´s government has avoided facing this problem for years and has made small insignificant
laws that have changed nothing. Chile is the country with the biggest production of waste per
capita in all of South America, and in addition to this, recycling is almost null, the OECD states that
96% of total collected municipal solid waste was deposited in landfills, and only 4% was recovered
or recycled in 2010/2011. This makes a terrible combination that leads to awful consequences
such as the creation of multiple illegal landfills, and there is no solution in sight.

We want to force the government to finally take action, and to do this we need first to make the
people realize how big this problem is, and by doing that you can also change the mentality people
have of trash. We want our publicity to target the youth of Chile, because it is more open-minded
and cares more about the environment than the other generations, our final objective is that the
reduction of wastes becomes one of the banners of the Chilean youth such as feminism and
abortion have become. However, we all know a law won’t change the way people think, but if it
becomes one of the main ideas of the rising generation, that can change our culture and the way
we perceive waste, and that change in mentality can save Chile.

The first step will be doing speeches in the universities all along Chile, and at the end we will pass
handouts, (made out of recycled paper), that have facts about the waste in Chile. It will also be
written on the paper that the idea is for them to find other people that haven’t read the paper and
give it to them. If they can’t find anyone who hasn’t read it, they have to recycle it and they will
probably perceive how hard it is to find a place to recycle in Chile. Some of the fact we will include
in the paper will be:

 In Chile, we produce, per capita, an average of 456 kilograms of waste every year, which
leads to a production of almost 8 billion kilograms of waste every year, and the number
keeps on growing.
 According to Informe Estado del Medio Ambiente (2011) close to 40% of the waste still
goes into illegal landfills.
 Polluted air is among the greatest threats to health in low- and middle-income countries,
causing roughly 7 million deaths globally between ambient and household pollution.
 According to FAO close to 1/3 of the production of food for human consumption ends up
in the trash. If the production of food that is wasted would be a country, it would be the
third biggest producer of CO2, only after the USA and China.

After this, we would like people to join us on social media so that we can organize a march to
protest against the lack of action from the government. We would also write various letters to the
major newsletters in Chile. We think this method of action is the most effective, firstly because the
march will draw attention and one of the major objectives of our campaign is that people realize
how big of a problem this is, and this would motivate people to join our cause. We would like
organizations such as “disco sopa” to join us so that people can see how some people do really
care about this situation in Chile and have some fun solutions. Furthermore, a well-structured
letter with potent arguments and solutions would give credibility and seriousness to our
movement and show we do care about the situation of our country and that we have thought
about not only the problems but also the solutions to it. This would give us two very important
attributes for our movement; firstly, it gives us the support of the people that is key to generate
pressure against the government so they will feel obligated to take action. It will also give us a
serious posture and we can set out clearly our main objectives and ideas so that this movement
stays on the same line all along.

We think our method of acting will be the most efficient, other methods of action such as
sculpture, drama or poetry would probably have a low impact on the youth in Chile. Other
examples such as graffiti would probably also be ineffective because we think the main problem is
that people are poorly informed about Chile’s situation with waste, and graffiti’s normally don’t
give facts and information about a problem, they try to impact the viewer, but I think that people
need to be more informed to care about this problem.

We also found that the main problem with our approach to the problem would be if we couldn’t
have an impact on Chile’s younger generations, because it would mean that the marches would be
a big failure and the letters to the major newspapers won’t change anything by themselves.
However, we think that if our methods don’t cause an impact on the youth it is mainly because
they don’t care about it even after hearing and understanding the problem, and I think that would
be a problem that couldn’t be solved by just giving lectures and handouts, and that would be a
problem we just can’t solve. Nevertheless, we do think that the young generations of Chile will
care about this huge problem we face as Chile.

We are influenced by the philosophies of Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi. We like the
idea of Thoreau that the government is far from perfect but that it can be improved, he said “I ask
for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.” Which supports our idea of
trying to make the government notice one of their many flaws, so they can improve them and
make a better country. He also said “For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be:
what is once well done is done forever.” Which reflects perfectly how we think the government
should act, we want the government changes to be profound, determining and “well done”.
Because, once the 0-waste, recycling movement is introduced into Chile’s culture, it will never go
away. We also like the general idea that Gandhi represents, that if you are not doing anything you
are part of the problem, he said “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would
also change.” And “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would
suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.” This two quotes would help to motivate people and
make them realize that it is also their problem and that they are part of it, we all are part of it, and
we do not need just a change in the government but a change in how the people think themselves.

We find that other philosophies such as Malcom X and anarchism would not fit our cause. Firstly
because we find Malcom’s ideas to be very divisive and sometimes violent which would not serve
our cause in any way, because we want the complete opposite, we want the people to join to
fight for one cause that will help us all and we want our movement to be peaceful as there is no
need for violence. Moreover, we find that anarchism wouldn’t be beneficial because we still need
the government to make the changes that we are fighting for, we would like to fight with the
government to find a better solution, making the government fight for what is best for Chile.

The main objective of our movement is to motivate young adults to be part of the change Chile
needs, the change in mentality, the change in laws, the change in attitude, by changing
themselves. Together we can form a change in a government that has taken no action towards a
better solution to an eminent problem, choose to be part of the solution, as Michelle Templet
said, “If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the
hell is the point of having it?”