Every June 5th, the world celebrates the World Environment Day, a date promoted by the United Nations since 1972 to raise global awareness about the environmental challenges that threaten life on the planet.
This 2025, the motto is forceful:“No plastic pollution”An urgent call to reduce, reuse, and reject the excessive use of plastics that invade our rivers, soils, bodies, and life systems.
Plastic pollution also threatens the Amazon
Although it is usually associated with urban consumption,plastics crisisIt has already reached the most remote corners of the Amazon. Bags, containers, packaging, microplastics, and hospital waste are contaminating rivers, soil, animals, and even human bodies.
Non-biodegradable plastic puts you at risk:
- The health of indigenous and riverine communities, who depend directly on river water for their daily lives.
- The Amazonian fauna, which ingests or is trapped in plastic waste.
- The integrity of ecosystems, whose regenerative capacity is severely affected.
An ecological dream from the beloved Amazon
In light ofPraise be to you and the ecological dream ofDear Amazon, the Church in the Amazon reaffirms its commitment to an integral ecology that rejects the throwaway culture and all forms of pollution, especially that caused by plastic. Inspired by the cry of the Earth and the poor, we feel called to promote a sober and sustainable lifestyle, denounce the extractive models that destroy our Common Home, and recover the ancestral wisdom that teaches us to live in harmony with creation. Along this path, ecological spirituality is at the heart of the Christian commitment to justice and life.
Actions of the Amazonian communities
From Amazonian communities, we can take concrete and contextualized actions to reduce plastic pollution: stop using plastic bags, bottles, and utensils at fairs, markets, and local celebrations; promote community waste collection and recycling through collection points managed by youth and local leaders; recover and encourage the use of traditional containers such as totumas, baskets, calabashes, and leaf wrappers; organize cleanup days in streams, canals, and community roads; and provide training in schools and associations on the impacts of plastic on health, animals, and crops. These small, collectively sustained actions regenerate the territory and strengthen community autonomy in the face of external consumption models.
Without plastic pollution, there is a future
In the Amazon, every plastic bag abandoned in a river is a wound to life. Every bottle that isn’t recycled is a threat to the people.
But every act of care, recycling, and awareness is a seed of hope.
How Amazonian Church, we join the cry of the Earth and the dream of a world pollution-free, more just and more fraternal.
An Amazon without plastic is a more vibrant Amazon.
A humanity without pollution is a reconciled humanity.