Rio De Janeiro Government Restarts Guanabara Bay Cleanup After Four Months

Rio de Janeiro government will, "finally, retake the cleanup of the Guanabara Bay," according to Vinicius Konchinski of UOL. On Wednesday -- 45 days before the last sailing test event for the Olympics -- 10 boats "adapted to collect floating trash will go back to circulating the Olympic competition location." These ecoboats have had their work "suspended for four months" due to alleged late payments from Rio government. However, from March until now, Rio government has "settled late payments with companies that operate the ecoboats in order to restart" Guanabara Bay's cleaning. During this period, the Rio de Janeiro Environmental State Secretary (SEA) "also reformulated the plan to collect floating trash." Now, the ecoboats will "navigate with garbage buckets attached to them to increase waste transport capacity." They will also work during the weekends, in addition to a new circulation "led by a new management team" (UOL, 6/26).