"I have already built 3 clay ovens with garbage"

It was one of the phrases that marked me in my relationship with Diogo.

I got to know Diogo's work through Rede Permaperifa at Casa Ecoativa in Grajaú. Back to talking about fabrics, about networks, this great Network is supported by the development of permaculture on the outskirts of São Paulo.

I was very surprised at this meeting at Casa Ecoativa, when people came from the other side of the city. And, in large urban centers, public transport does not work very well in peripheral areas, bordering the edges of the city. Most transport needs to go through the center to get there. In other words, people who came from Perus, Carapicuíba, Guaianazes, etc., took between 2, 3 or even 4 hours to arrive in space.

I was very impressed with how those people were motivated to voluntarily support the socio-economic-environmental development of the ghetto. The Permaperifa Network brings together various cultural and permacultural groups in a given community for a joint effort in some community space that is in need of a dry toilet, vegetable garden, oven, or other local need.

As the peripheral areas of urban centers receive a lot of rubble and waste from the central areas, permaculture in the ravine is to reinvent the materials available on the spot. This is how Diogo built 3 clay ovens using waste he found on the street.

He told me these stories after we were thinking about how to dispose and process 100% of the waste we were generating here at the site, after all, we demolished some walls that were falling down, we bought construction equipment (plastic coated), and we consumed some food that was also packaged. . This is how Diogo told me the story of his first oven “made with garbage and earth”:

“The first was in a popular prep course in Campinas that had no money. They needed to set up a settlement to carry out activities there. Refractory brick would be very expensive. But you can use sand, lime… and we need to think of a base. Shall we take a walk around the land to see what you have? Sand had a work there. Now we need stuff for the base. The crowd was picking up garbage, wood. wood is not legal, only if it is hardwood. Tire is a good one. People were picking up tires, brass. And the bricklayers in the region hurt everything looking. Who are those crazy people over there? And no one would have guessed. People are shaping with the Earth. Just like this sink here, no one will imagine that there is bamboo at the bottom. This oven was cute, the crowd was molding some designs…”