Oceanographer Vinicius Palermo reaches into Guanabara Bay with a hand-held net, scooping another soggy load of candy wrappers, soda bottles and shredded plastic bags.
His specially outfitted boat filters as much as 180 pounds of garbage daily from this enormous bay, including rusting refrigerators and dead sea turtles tangled in fishing line. All this in the waters that will host the Olympic sailing competition in 2016.
Decades of neglect and unplanned growth have long caused foul beaches and health hazards for local residents, but now officials are struggling to clean it up before the global spotlight hits Brazil with the world's two biggest sporting events, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.