RIO DE JANEIRO - A mechanism for re-using nearly all of the water utilized in the clothes washing machine reduces water consumption of 6,000 liters to just 15, and is very inexpensive, the president of Brazil's National Association of Inventors, Carlos Mazzei, told Tierramérica.

The system, known as Safira, filters and stores the water used by the washing machine. At a cost equivalent to three months of savings for household potable water services, it is likely to be incorporated into future machine designs, Mazzei predicts.

Safira, whose inventor is washing machine repairman Rubens de Oliveira Filho, stands out among 600 inventions exhibited at the association's Museum of Inventions, founded in 1992 to foment innovation and help their introduction into the market.

Another invention with positive environmental impact is the "rotating mat" for cleaning up rivers by withdrawing solid waste from its waters.

BUENOS AIRES - On his television program "La noche del 10", the most watched show in Argentina, former soccer star Diego Maradona asked the government to prevent the clearing of the Pizarro reserve, in the northeastern province of Salta, where a community of Wichí Indians lives.

"Now it will be much more difficult for the government to ignore the request," Emiliano Ezcurra, activist with the environmental watchdog Greenpeace which is working on this cause, told Tierramérica.

The protected area was stripped of its status by the provincial government two years ago and auctioned off to commercial farming companies. But the area, in addition to its rich biodiversity, is home to a community that does not want to move.

On Sep. 26, actor Ricardo Darín brought the demands of the Wichís to Maradona's TV program. In Pizarro, the indigenous community could not watch the show because they don't have electricity, but a neighbor told them about it, and they were very thankful, said Ezcurra.

LIMA - Community leaders in the mining province of Oyón, 160 km northeast of Lima, are demanding that the government take immediate steps to prevent the contamination caused by the company Buenaventura, world leader in silver production.

"With its mining slag, Buenaventura killed off all forms of life in the lagoons of Oyón and is also dumping waste into the Huaura River," Felipe Reyes Villena, president of an Oyón neighborhood committee, told Tierramérica.

"We have been denouncing this eco-cide for months, but so far the authorities haven't done a thing. We came (to Lima) to contact other community organizations that face problems of environmental contamination," said Reyes.

According to its own figures published in 2004, Buenaventura produces approximately 10 million ounces of silver a year, making it the leading producer of this precious metal in South America, and fourth in the world.

SAO PAULO - From May 3 to May 6, 2006, in Bento Goncalves, in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, the second International Ecological and Environmental Fair (FIEMA) will promote new technologies for sustainable development.

When it was announced last month, FIEMA president in Brazil, Cesar Rubechini, stressed that the business community's awareness has evolved from almost total indifference towards a vision of socio-environmental responsibility.

"Entrepreneurs see the importance of technologies for cleaner production, given that they represent a reduction of production costs," Rubechini told Tierramérica.

According to a report from the Brazilian Network for Cleaner Production, between 1999 and 2002 the 153 companies that participate in the program together were able to reduce their annual expenditures on raw materials, water and energy by more than eight million dollars.