Abstract
Rural areas are often neglected with respect to solid waste management, and if some kind of management is in place it is often inadequate, causing harm to the rural population and environment, especially when open burning and dumping are practiced. These practices are performed in rural areas/isolated communities worldwide. In today's scenario, any actions taken by cities generally do not focus on implementing a circular economy, that is, closing the loops and resource recovery, which are important to increase the quality of life of rural populations. In this sense, this study aimed to assess the environmental impacts of the current waste handling scenario of Quilombola communities located in the rural areas of west-central Brazil to shed light on this issue and provide means to decision-makers to act appropriately. Life cycle assessment was employed for a “current” (combination of waste burning and landfilling) and a “proposed” (source separation and home composting) scenario with 1 ton of municipal solid waste as the functional unit and the ILCD recommended method for impact assessment. The results showed that the current scenario registered environmental burdens for all impact categories assessed, such as 415 kg CO 2 eq. for climate change and 37,174 CTUe for freshwater eutrophication, while in the proposed scenario, the impacts were reduced in all categories. Based on these results, we concluded that the studied population was exposed to several different impacts, especially due to waste burning, which represented 98.8% of emissions to climate change, and that the proposed scenario poses an alternative conducive to a shift towards circular economy and sustainable development concepts. Our study provides important data regarding necessary improvements to current waste handling practices to reduce environmental impacts and enhance the quality of life of the rural population, which will help decision-makers take appropriate actions. • We applied an LCA approach to waste handling in rural communities in Brazil. • Open burning represents 98.8% of emissions to climate change. • The alternative scenario towards CE produced savings in most impact categories. • Governance and investments are needed to improve life quality of the population.
Highlights
Solid waste is an issue that affects all societal groups, cultures, regions, and races, and it is not very likely to be solved anytime soon (Cogut, 2016)
Quilombola communities in Brazil are mostly located in rural areas; they are often neglected with respect to provisioning services, including solid waste management
An environmental assessment was performed for waste handling in rural Quilombola communities in west-central Brazil by comparing the current scenario of burning most of the waste with a proposed source separation scenario
Summary
Solid waste is an issue that affects all societal groups, cultures, regions, and races, and it is not very likely to be solved anytime soon (Cogut, 2016). The amount and complexity of waste generated in the world is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades, with projections estimating up to 2.2 billion tons in 2025 (Kaza et al, 2018) This tendency is due to population growth, economic progress, and new lifestyles of the population. One of the most widely used decision-making tools for waste management systems is the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, which assesses the environmental impacts of a certain product/activity/system in order to track where the most emissions originate, enabling the prioritisation of issues to be tackled. LCA is a comprehensive methodology, comprising four stages (goal and scope definition, inventory, impact assessment, and interpretation), that requires a significant amount of data because it assesses the environmental impacts across the full life cycle of a product/system (i.e., from cradle to gate, from extraction to disposal) (European Commission, 2010). The methodology can present results in terms of emissions or person equivalent (PE) per stage of the product system, giving a broad perspective of the environmental impacts of the activity in different impact categories
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