Across the second half of 2024, Cities of Seven Continents (C7) served as a primary sponsor of Route Institute, supporting eleven cleanup actions from the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the reservoirs of São Paulo. Together these actions engaged hundreds of volunteers, dozens of partner organizations, and removed hundreds of kilograms of waste from some of Brazil's most treasured — and most threatened — coastal and freshwater ecosystems.

The real impact

Led by the charismatic catador Simão Filipe, Route understands something essential: cleaning and documenting the trash on the beach does not solve the heart of the problem directly. There will always be more trash as long as our systems of production remain linear. What changes is the perspective and knowledge of each participant. Educating the groups that join these fun and engaging cleanups helps all of us understand the unspoken relationship we have with our waste. That is the real impact — and it is why Route sits at the center of C7's upcoming documentary, (T)RASH.

The 2024 actions

  • Aug 3 — Mangrove Cleanup Action, Barra de Guaratiba, Rio (1,183 items / 46.6 kg)
  • Jul 27, Aug 3 & 11 — Corona Olympic Sunsets, Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Rio (three-day series)
  • Aug 31 — TechnipFMC, São Conrado, Rio (~280 participants / 11,921 items)
  • Sep 1 — Corona + Soga Beach Club, Praia do Pepino, Rio (891 items)
  • Sep 17 — Caixa Guarapiranga, Guarapiranga Reservoir, São Paulo (6,838 items)
  • Oct 27 — Escoteiros do Brasil & World Scout Foundation, São Conrado, Rio (581 items / 10.2 kg)
  • Nov 30 — Dream Tour + Sonho Azul & the G20 Whale, São Conrado, Rio (6,245+ items / 52.9 kg)
  • Dec 1 — Corona + Magikk + Burle Experience, Barra da Tijuca, Rio (2,304 items / 19.5 kg)
  • Dec 7 — Sprite / Coca-Cola Andina, São Conrado, Rio (4,890 items)
  • Dec 8 — Leblon HD Futevôlei + Magikk, Leblon, Rio (2,298 items / 29.3 kg)
  • Dec 28 — Corona Casa Maresias, Maresias, São Sebastião-SP (2,206 items / 22.05 kg)

Collective impact

Taken together, the eleven actions gathered well over 40,000 individual items of waste and removed more than 250 kg of material by weight — but the numbers only tell part of the story. Recurring culprits appeared at nearly every site: cigarette butts in the thousands, plastic bottle caps, straws, Styrofoam, PET bottles and single-use cups. The consistency of that inventory, across beaches and reservoirs hundreds of kilometers apart, is itself the lesson: this is a systemic problem, not a local accident.

What Route builds at each event — with partners spanning global brands, surf associations, scouts, sanitation companies, and neighborhood collectives from Rocinha to Maresias — is a shared understanding. Every volunteer who fills a sack and weighs its contents leaves knowing a little more about where waste comes from and where it goes. That knowledge is the change that lasts long after the sand is clean.

C7 is proud to have sponsored this work in 2024, and to carry its story forward through (T)RASH.