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Favela da Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Google Streetview

Putting the favelas of Rio de Janeiro on the map

After a 1937 city ordinance didn’t map them due to their ‘temporary’ nature, the shanty towns have finally been recognised.

LOOK AT MOST maps of Rio de Janeiro. The beaches are easy to spot, as are the iconic ocean-front neighbourhoods of Copacabana and Ipanema.

In the middle is a vast forest.

What’s less identifiable are the blank swaths with no streets, landmarks or other signs of human habitation.

Those spots are in fact some of the city’s densest neighbourhoods, its favelas, or shanty towns, that blanket entire hillsides. Though they’ve long provided most of the city’s affordable housing, government officials have traditionally considered them eyesores and literally left them off the map, condemning millions to legal invisibility.

Now, those communities are being charted after decades of informality, each route and alley outlined and their names researched. A non-profit organization run by current and former favela residents called Redes da Mare kick-started the first mapping program in the grouping of communities known as Mare with a simple but powerful goal: putting their homes on the map, with named streets, zip codes and official addresses.

Being left off had meant whole neighbourhoods were unable to receive mail at home. It had also blocked people from giving required information on job applications, getting a bank account or telling the police or fire department where to go in an emergency call. Favela residents had to pick up their mail from their neighbourhood associations, and entire slums housing a small town’s worth of residents had to use the zip code of the closest officially recognized street.

Official addresses

Getting an official address represents a fundamental step toward real citizenship and helps break the stigma and abandonment that has marked communities, said Redes director Eliana Silva. At its heart, she said, the effort erases the barriers between the formal city and favela neighbourhoods, which house one in five ‘cariocas’, as Rio residents are called.

“The right to the city starts with making visible these areas that historically were not on the map,” Silva said. “Putting the community on the map says, ‘These people exist, they’re here, with the same rights as everyone else.’”

Maps aren’t simply data culled and presented objectively, said Jason Farman, a University of Maryland professor who researches mapping and digital media. They also represent the perspective of a cartographer, corporation, organization or government.

“For a community to be left off of the map is the equivalent of saying that the community doesn’t matter,” he said. “It removes a vital part of their identity.”

Celebrations

Theoretical debates aside, those who live in Mare are celebrating the practical benefits of the blue-and-white ceramic street signs going up on corners.

The non-profit used the same methodology as the government’s Institute of Geography and Statistics to survey the complex of 16 favelas housing about 130,000 residents. It then produced a slick guide, distributed free to residents, that includes not only street names but the history of the original smaller favelas that make up the community. The guide offers information about the people some streets are named after, while leaving some blank, to be filled in later by residents.

Daniel Remilik, a Mare native, recently watched workers mount a sign on Jose Caetano street, noting that its namesake was a barber who helped newcomers get settled. Remilik had helped the non-profit group interview locals to figure out street names throughout the sprawling slum, which stretches between two of Rio’s main highways and is routinely criss crossed by young men on motorcycles armed with assault weapons who openly sell drugs.

Remilik said the work taught him a lot about a community he already thought he knew well.

Recognition

“I love this place, I grew up here,” he said. “Seeing it recognized like this, on a map, with street signs, makes me proud. I can look up and think, I helped do this.”

Doralice de Freitas, who has lived in Nova Holanda, one of the favelas that make up Mare, said her neighbourhood will be like anywhere else in town with the maps and street signs, which are produced in Redes da Mare art classes.

“Before, if we went somewhere we didn’t know, we’d have to go asking everyone, ‘Do you know where this person lives?’” she said. “Now, we can do it like anyone else, have a street name and a number, look it up on a map, and go.”

The favelas’ new visibility hasn’t come without controversy.

Some cariocas have complained that Google Maps exaggerated the size of favelas, giving them undue prominence while ignoring established residential districts and making the city look like an “agglomeration of shanty towns,” reported Rio’s biggest newspaper O Globo last year. The city’s tourism secretary called the online maps “absurd” and demanded Google modify them.

The company’s local spokesman responded that they had never intended to defame the city and promised to label tourist sites and forgotten districts. They also pledged to change the website’s design so that the names of favelas appeared only when users zoomed in.

A lifetime of not existing

For decades, many were happy to simply ignore the slums.

A 1937 city ordinance decreed they shouldn’t appear on maps because they were “temporary,” and the middle and upper classes shrugged them off as unsightly but convenient sources of cheap labour.

That disregard was replaced in the 1980s with fear when many favelas were taken over by the drug trade and violence escalated. By the 1990s, nascent urbanization programs began mapping main streets in well-established communities, but left off vast areas.

Safety concerns, however, have taken centre stage with the 2014 World Cup around the corner and 2016 Olympics not far behind, and authorities had to pay attention to the slums. State and city police have been taking over select favelas, reclaiming territory that had been forfeited to drug-dealing factions and re-establishing the state’s authority.

Such mapping projects became possible with the police takeover, said Vinicius Gentil, who is leading the effort’s expansion to 120 police-controlled favelas through the city’s urban planning arm, the Instituto Pereira Passos.

The scope is ambitious and the territory hard to navigate, encompassing 400,000 residents in neighbourhoods until only recently occupied by armed drug dealers. Winding and narrow alleyways are sometimes so dark that naked light bulbs substituting as street lights must often stay on during the day.

The institute has tackled the challenge by pairing professionals such as historians, sociologists and social workers with residents to tap both insider knowledge and outsider training, Gentil said.

“This partnership also encourages a constant exchange between residents and outsiders, and that too helps do away with this idea that the favela is a separate territory,” he said.

The institute’s teams, which are trained by the Mare mappers, set off on their task with basic Google Maps satellite photos of the community, and any available basic maps showing the main streets. From there they spread out into labyrinthine alleyways, dead-end roads and other passageways.

Along the way, they note neighbourhood needs such as sewage systems, sports facilities and child care centres with the idea of directing city and private resources there, Gentil said.

Finally, geographers double-check it all. Street names only enter the official database if they aren’t already taken, he said. Getting a zip code assigned means navigating even more bureaucracy. But it’s all worth it in the end, when the street signs go up.

“It’s a long process,” Gentil said. “But what is important is that it is the same process the rest of the city goes through.”

Read: Shock as artist found dead by his famous work in Brazil >

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10 Comments
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    Mute Nelly
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 9:54 PM

    Rosanna has nice cylinders in that pic

    323
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    Mute Paul Radford
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:39 PM

    Is that what they’re calling them now !

    I always taught they were *^%#.
    But Journal won’t let me say that

    37
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    Mute Antonov Merinov
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:40 PM

    Scaremongering by Calor just because you have encountered competition❓
    Give me a break❗

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    Mute Antonov Merinov
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:45 PM

    Looking at this luscious blonde in the add… Who needs gas to keep warm. LOL

    64
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    Mute Little Jim
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 1:57 AM

    TITS!
    Yes, apparently you can say tits.

    43
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    Mute Little Jim
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 1:58 AM

    (purposely ignoring antonob btw)

    14
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    Mute Dalai Obama
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 9:56 PM

    refilling cylinders is dangerous to the profits of those who operate a cartel.

    Big government is watching.

    152
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    Mute Stephen Doyle
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 9:57 PM

    Really, is that the best photo to illustrate the story?

    132
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    Mute vv7k7Z3c
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 9:58 PM

    Honestly – that is the ONLY picture of Calor Gas cylinders I could find on our photo services. Promise.

    250
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    Mute Nelly
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 9:58 PM

    Would you rather it was a hot man in that pic?

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    Mute Stephen Doyle
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 9:59 PM

    A pirate would have been better

    89
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    Mute Dalai Obama
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:07 PM

    Stephen,

    lol…..aarrrghhhh…………gas companies are pirates……..

    46
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    Mute Philip Cavanagh
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:15 PM

    You’re a gas man stephen

    51
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    Mute Monkeyman57
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:57 PM

    It’s the only reason I clicked on the article;) #BigCans

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    Mute Matthew Hyland
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 11:30 PM

    Her mothers name is Flo…

    25
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    Mute Maurice Wallace
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 11:37 PM

    That’s what they said about Hitler!!

    6
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    Mute Ivorpabst
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 12:05 AM

    Yes, yes it is.

    2
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    Mute conor hickey
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 12:50 AM

    That’s a gas story.
    Any more like it?

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    Mute censored
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 3:32 AM

    @Stephen: YES!!!!!

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    Mute Ben Gunn
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 8:24 AM

    Good Choice.

    1
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    Mute Jed I. Knight
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:10 PM

    Ok, so pirate refilling can be dangerous. Freezing to death or catching pneumonia because you have to choose between food or heat isn’t exactly enticing either.

    124
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    Mute Dalai Obama
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:14 PM

    raw chicken and no gas would entice you to illegally fill your bottle.

    68
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    Mute Jed I. Knight
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 7:28 AM

    @ Dali Obama Personally, right now no. But if I was in a position where I was watching my children freeze and could only afford some of this illegal gas then I’d consider it in a heartbeat.
    The only reason scams like this are so successful now rather than 10 – 15 years ago is because desperate people will do desperate things, they’re exploiting that. When you turn on your TV you’re bombarded with adverts for “Cash for gold” and Short term loan companies with enormous interest rates, it’s the same thing but in this case the scammers wear suits and ties.

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    Mute Eric De Red
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:07 PM

    I wouldn’t mind filling Rosanna’s cylinder.

    90
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    Mute Joanne Sarah
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:42 PM

    I actually just got sick in my mouth a bit.

    32
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    Mute Darren O'Brien
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:29 PM

    Can we always assume the customer is aware that the gas bottle has been refilled illegally? What about customers who might be ripped off paying full price for dodgy gas bottles. Now THAT would piss me off. Like paying for beefburger and getting horseburger. Neeeigh!

    83
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    Mute Falstaff Oldcourt
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:00 PM

    I don’t see what the problem is. It’s like cheaper medicine. Cheaper than the real thing but does the same thing. And they’re grinding down the original branded name so it’s not as if they are deliberately trying to pass off as the real brand.

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    Mute Tim Higgins
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:15 PM

    Don’t be fooled, generic drugs are not the same as branded drug’s. Its only the active ingredients in off patent there are many other compound in them besides. There’s only cents in the difference anyway.

    19
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    Mute Dalai Obama
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:24 PM

    tim,
    explain + link……………….please

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    Mute Niamh Baker
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:27 PM

    Really, I always wondered that!

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    Mute Tim Higgins
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:42 PM

    With out boring everyone to death 2 thing’s. I was prescribed klacid last week for a chest infection, the pharmacy gave me cloram. When I wouldn’t take them and asked for the real stuff there was only 12 cents in the difference, worked out less than 2 cent per tab. Lipotor for example has other compounds besides the statens in it, ie the time release agents that allow the active ingredient be released in to your blood stream. Some generic manufacturers havent this technology perfected and their versions can release the active ingredient in to your blood stream very fast making you feel unwell.

    28
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    Mute Dalai Obama
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 11:01 PM

    tim,
    I know full well that vit b3 (niacin, NOT niacinamide) is more effective and safer than statins at reducing cholesterol, and with no side effects.

    All B vits have to be taken with a b complex, because the enzymes depend on each other for efficacy, those who take independent b vits are wasting their money.

    of course the best way to beat cholesterol is to give up dairy, and/or processed meat.

    11
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    Mute Alan Lawlor
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 7:38 AM

    Generics are IDENTICAL to the original patents. Even if the non-active ingredients differ, then the drug must go through the entire FDA approval process which takes years and tens of millions. No generic manufacturer will do that as their competitors will get the jump on them going to market and the costs of approval will mean they will not be much cheaper.

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    Mute Emily Elephant
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 9:20 AM

    That’s not accurate. Generics have to go through an abbreviated clinical trial process, in which they have to prove they are bioequivalent to the reference drug, i.e. available to the body in the same concentrations at any given point in time. “Same concentration” usually means +/- 20% depending on the drug. You can put in any non-active ingredients you like as long as they’re generally regarded as safe.

    tl;dr – They are not identical. They are supposed to be functionally identical, more or less.

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    Mute John Donovan
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 9:54 AM

    How many mistakes can you make in a paragraph?

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    Mute james moore
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 12:09 AM

    if only people really knew the dangers of what one of these could do they might change their tune. Its a safety issue above everything else. Calor are regulated to provide a product at a certain standard the other company clearly doesn’t care about anyones safety

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    Mute richardmccarthy
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 10:59 PM

    I wonder if there was an accident with one of these rogue Calor cylenders,if people would or would not be covered for personel injury compensation,its a point that should be kept in mind by people that use them.

    17
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    Mute Dave Byrne
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 12:58 AM

    I have dealt with all sorts of dangerous goods during my career in transport,One thing you don’t mess around with is butane gas or any other sort of gas as it is in a pressurised container 200 bar.
    If something happened the cylinder it would be like a missile taken off seriously injuring a person.

    13
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    Mute Stephen Doyle
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 1:08 AM

    Just ask Rosanna! Both of hers went off and now she’s halfway to Mars. Probably do a photo shoot for playboy when she lands

    4
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    Mute Sean O'Reilly
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 11:33 PM

    “grinded”?

    9
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    Mute Will Too
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 5:19 AM

    I think Rosanna’s cylinders were rebranded ,I’ll personally check they’re the real deal!

    8
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    Mute William Furlong
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 12:06 AM

    Fine pair of cylinders there helping to keep Rosanna balanced

    8
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    Mute Frank Nugent
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    Oct 2nd 2013, 11:36 PM

    Their gas must be cheaper then calor !!

    8
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    Mute Silent Majority
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 10:13 AM

    Yes, but how can a company the fraction of the size of Calor provide a product so much cheaper than them? They must be cutting costs somewhere, and that may not be in the best interests of customers even if they are saving a few shillings.

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    Mute Noel Otley
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 12:51 PM

    I dealt with a smaller gas supplier.
    When I switched fuels, I gave them back their cylinders but they did not return my deposit. Only when I threatened them with the Small Claims Court did I get my money back.

    How many other customers never got their money back? How many of these small companies are operating similar scams?

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    Mute David Phelan
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    Oct 15th 2013, 1:44 PM

    Can you let people know the name of this company for future reference,can you also say if you have ever recieved a deposit back from any of the larger companies,I say this because I know of many who have not and if you look at some of the forums,like boards.ie or similar you will see that there are quite a large amount of complaints by people with regard to this fictitious deposit scheme,
    Also,did they have you fill out a deposit return form when you first got these cylinders.

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    Mute Pat Donlon
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    Oct 3rd 2013, 6:54 AM

    The cylinders are the property of Calor and they include a rental cost in the price of the refill to recoup the cost of the cylinder. Hence the reason pirate filling is cheeper as they only have the gas and filling costs.

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    Mute David Phelan
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    Oct 15th 2013, 1:50 PM

    You say they include a rental cost in the price of the refill,how do you know this.
    Why then does the consumer have to buy the cylinder originally and then also have a rental cost included in the price of the refill.
    Would this not be double/triple charging for a product,if so this practice needs to be stamped out.

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    Mute David Phelan
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    Oct 15th 2013, 1:31 PM

    A lot of the comments here are obviously trying to mislead the public.when they say pirate filling they are trying to scare the public into believing there were something wrong with the cylinders.
    What actually happened here is customers like you or I had to buy an empty cylinder origionaly from a dealer be it calor flo or whom else.when you bought the cylinder as far as I am concerned this cylinder was mine or yours.
    Therefore I should be able to have this cylinder filled by whom ever I want to fill my cylinder.
    Calor and flo gas say these are their cylinders,but as far as I am aware my parents,myself and any person I know bought their cylinder and were never informed it was not then theirs,Has anybody ever been asked to fill out a rental form for these cylinders as in the uk,can anybody come on here and say they had filled out a rental form for either calor or Flo gas within the last 10 or 20 years,
    Look at the ruling of the european court with regard to filling of gas cylinders and inform yourselves as to what the real story is here.
    http://www.jenkins.eu/…/re-fills-brim-with-uncertainty-in-gas-repackaging-cas
    While gas in itself costs aprox 800 euros per ton consumers need to ask themselves this most important question,why are we paying so much per cylinder of gas,the cylinder only contains aprox 9 euros worth of gas why are we paying 3 or 4 times this price.Also one very important question consumers need to raise with these companies is the fact that when you return your bottle there is always some gas remaining, possibly as much as 2 or 3 kgs,we are effectively paying for the same product twice.By this statement I mean if you buy 11kgs of gas and pay say 33 euro,3 euro per kg and you can only extract 9kgs from the cylinder you should effectively get a refund of €6.But they will never tell you there is still 2kgs left in the bottle so in real terms the next bottle costs you 39 euro or 3.90 per kg you return the cylinder again with 2kgs inside and the next costs you €40.80.
    There is a tare weight on the cylinder say 13kgs if you weigh the cylinder and it is 1 or 2 kgs over this tare weight then you are effectively being scammed of the remaining gas content.
    By eliminating the smaller competition the larger operators effectively control the market place and can charge whatever they like,there is no competition in the irish market in relation to this product,in real terms €20 is more than enough to have to pay for this product in a standard 11.34kg cylinder.
    Wake up consumers,sensationalist headlines like pirate filling,while may be true in some cases only serve the interests of conglomerates whose only true intention is to control and dominate markets for their own financial gain.
    Consumers should purchase their OWN cylinder,and retain ownership themselves and support the smaller companies,which in turn will create more jobs that this country needs so badly.
    As stated previously the gas in an 11kg cylinders at todays market price is worth about €9 that is why the smaller operator is cheaper,THEY DO NOT TRY AND TAKE MASSIVE PROFITS TO KEEP THEIR SHAREHOLDERS IN LUXURY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE HARD PRESSED CONSUMER.
    The real cost of an new empty cylinder is aprox €20.Consumers can get at least 10 years from this cylinder.
    If you can SAVE €10 per refill that is a very large saving,and if you can also get an allowance for the remaining gas content in your cylinder on return the savings are very substantial indeed.

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    Mute Cristian Go
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    Jun 30th 2016, 4:11 AM

    Invaluable writing . I learned a lot from the points . Does someone know if my business might be able to get a template AL MVT 32-13 example to fill out ?

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