Analysis and Proposal for Actors' Roles in Solid Waste Management in the City of Fortaleza (Brazil)

Abstract

The continuous population growth and the high rate of urbanization of cities, added to the growing consumption of products, result in the proportional generation of solid waste that brings various harms, such as air and water pollution, soil contamination and degradation, proliferation of various diseases and devaluation of urban real estate. In Fortaleza, regardless of its size or number of inhabitants, waste is collected through the action of collectors belonging to the most miserable layers of the population, without adequate preparation to carry out such activity and by a mega private company hired by the City Hall, with serious doubts about the execution of your work. This article analyzes the roles of public and private actors involved in the solid waste management process in the city of Fortaleza, Brazil, and suggests a new configuration for this operation that takes into account the needs of the community and more effective and necessary actions such as collection selection, review of waste disposal, use of gas and fertilizer generated in sanitary landfills, and greater attention to the work of collectors. Fortaleza is a capital that generates millions of tons of solid waste per year, with an obvious difficulty in dealing with this, caused by the inefficiency in solving the associated problems. We used a qualitative methodology for exploratory research, based on interviews with public and private managers related to solid waste management. We analysed the interviews through Content Analysis, using the Iramuteq software, and unveiled the roles of the different actors.