Waste Management In Brazil Research Articles

Innovation and Sustainability in the Amazon with the Use of Blockchain

Objective: The general objective of this study is to model the implementation of a blockchain system for solid wastemanagement in a government agency. The specific objectives of the results are to identify the main challenges in implementing a blockchain system for solid waste management in Public Management (1); characterize the blockchain models identified in this investigation (2); and develop a blockchain system model for solid waste management in a government agency (3). Theoretical Framework: The Theory of New Public Management, discussed in Madan and Ashok (2022), is the basis of this study, considering the notes of these authors, who address the dominant paradigm in public administration. Method: This research has a qualitative or mixed approach, as it includes parametric elements based on architecture such as blockchain, supported by bibliographical research and documentary analysis. The bibliographical research was based on elements of an integrated solid waste management system, through a framework, as conceptualized in the specific topic of this study. The Content Analysis method was used to research documents and other textual or audiovisual databases on solid waste management and blockchain technology. This research method allowed us to extract relevant information from the data collected, organize it into thematic categories, and interpret it in light of the theoretical framework obtained. By applying Content Analysis, patterns, meanings, and nuances were identified that could enrich the understanding of the phenomenon studied, ensuring an in-depth and contextualized analysis. Results and Discussion: The scenario of research on solid waste management in Brazil is marked by significantchallenges that reflect the complexity of the country's socioeconomic and environmental context. According to Agência Brasil (2023), the generation of solid waste has increased alarmingly, with data from 2021 indicating that more than 80 million tons were produced, of which only 32.5% were correctly disposed of. Thisreality highlights the urgent need for effective and innovative public policies that address integrated waste management. Research Implications: The relevance of implementing a blockchain system in public governance is highlighted, considering the growing demand for innovative and sustainable solutions. Originality/Value: This study is of interest to government managers, academics involved in applied research onblockchain in waste management, politicians and other leaders committed to excellence in management, and other professionals committed to promising results in the relationship between innovation and sustainability in organizations.

Economic assessment of municipal solid waste management in midsized metropolitan areas of Brazil

This paper addresses the incipient number of studies regarding municipal solid waste management in Brazil, where the federal law requires the inclusion of waste pickers in waste management and proposes waste diversion targets far from being attained. Therefore, decision-makers can make the best choice economically among alternative technological roadmaps that meet the legal requirements. The proposed alternatives combine biowaste treatments (open composting, closed composting, anaerobic digestion), recycling and final disposal methods (landfill and incineration) for a metropolitan region with two million inhabitants. The results show that incineration can lower the costs for the citizens, and the cost increase is modest if anaerobic digestion is chosen if no profit is intended after 20 years (IRR=0%). However, higher profit (8% and 16% IRR) causes a significant increase in the service fees, which could encourage the use of composting facilities with lower environmental performance. Furthermore, the high waste diversions scenarios have lower service fees than the low diversions counterparts because of the increase in revenue from sales of recyclable materials and employing 5,697 instead of 2,138 pickers to work at sorting facilities, therefore highly recommended.

Resilience optimization in disruption-prone sustainable reverse supply chains for lead-acid battery waste management in Brazil: A stochastic model for public and private policy formulation

This study explores the relationship between disruptive events in supply chains and investments from public and private policies aimed at recovery. It focuses on the improper disposal of lead-acid battery waste in Brazil, which poses environmental and health risks, and suggests strategies for managing this waste through Brazilian reverse supply chains. A stochastic model was developed to optimize investments in resilient capabilities like absorption, adaptation, and recovery before and after disruptions. The results show that proactive investments should prioritize creating redundancies and collaboration to ensure timely restoration of waste supply, especially during low-severity events. The study provides a model that guides the allocation of resources for sustainable waste management in Brazilian lead-acid battery operations and highlights the importance of public and private policy formulation in enhancing supply chain resilience.

Evaluation of the efficiency of urban solid waste management in Brazil by data envelopment analysis and possible variables of influence

This article has the general objective of estimating the efficiency of urban solid waste management in 940 Brazilian municipalities through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique and has specific objectives: (i) to estimate efficiency scores; (ii) to compare the performance between different groups of municipalities; and (iii) to analyze the profile of efficient municipalities from the perspective of the guidelines of Law 12,305/2010 and socio-economic and environmental indicators. The technique used was DEA with output-oriented and variable scale to return modeling. The results showed higher efficiency scores in the municipalities with populations above 500,000 inhabitants. The score variation ranged from 0.5 (municipalities with populations <10,000 inhabitants) to 0.9 (municipalities with more than 500,000 inhabitants). Of the sample set, only 12.34% of the municipalities were considered efficient, and when analyzing the efficient group, it was found that adherence to legislation was not a major factor in achieving efficiency.Graphical abstract

Life cycle sustainability assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis: selection of a strategy for municipal solid waste management in Brazil

Life cycle sustainability assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis: selection of a strategy for municipal solid waste management in Brazil

Production and Coprocessing of Refuse-Derived Fuel: A Review

Objective: To review and synthesize the existing knowledge on the production and co-processing of waste-derived fuel, with a focus on the reality of solid waste management in Brazil. Method: This is a narrative review of the literature based on scientific articles available in bibliographic databases such as Scopus and ScienceDirect, as well as technical documents prepared by Brazilian governmental agencies. Results and Conclusion: Studies conducted in the country show that scenarios involving sanitary landfills, along with recycling and composting, have proven more viable in the transition to eco-efficiency. On the other hand, the energy potential of waste-derived fuel produced from urban solid waste has been explored with positive results in replacing fossil fuels and reducing CO2 emissions. However, it is necessary to ensure strict control of environmental impacts and to carry out comprehensive studies to assess the viability of co-processing in different regions of the country. Research Implications: The research contributes to the existing literature, emphasizing the performance of waste treatment techniques that can bring significant environmental gains to a country that still faces major problems related to solid waste management.

Life cycle sustainability assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis: selection of a strategy for municipal solid waste management in Brazil

Life cycle sustainability assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis: selection of a strategy for municipal solid waste management in Brazil

Regionalisation studies for municipal solid waste management in Brazil

Regionalisation studies for municipal solid waste management in Brazil

Transitioning towards a sustainable circular city: How to evaluate and improve urban solid waste management in Brazil.

A circular city (CC) promotes circular economy (CE) principles. Efficient urban solid waste management (USWM) strategies are essential for promoting a CE at the municipal level. New tools are needed to evaluate waste management (WM) and increase the reuse and recycling of materials to accelerate the transition towards a CC. These tools could assist decision and policymakers in adopting, implementing, and monitoring circular practices. This study proposes creating an index (USWM-index) to evaluate WM in urban areas and discuss how it could be better managed in future sustainable circular cities in Brazil. The index allows city managers to integratively and sustainably assess their USWM. Decision-makers can also use the index to set goals and objectives for recycling and reusing generated waste in cities. The index comprises 19 indicators and 51 sub-indicators. These elements were divided into five groups: Operational, Environmental, Political-economic, Educational, and Social. Cities can assess their performance in each group by using the USWM-index. The index was applied to four Brazilian cities. All cities had their USWM classified as average, and they did not have initiatives to transition to sustainable circular cities regarding WM. This study presents guidelines for transitioning from a linear city to a sustainable circular city in terms of WM.

A forecasting model based on ARIMA and artificial neural networks for end-OF-life vehicles.

The accelerated growth of the automotive supply network has had an immeasurable impact on the environment, especially relating to reusing and disposal of materials. The appropriate management of End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) has become an imperative item for achieving sustainable development in the field of interest and it is, therefore, a target of special attention from global economies in recent years. Therefore, the present study aims to estimate the future generation of ELVs to assist decision making and mitigate the global impact of this type of waste on the environment. For this, a hybrid forecasting model was used, based on Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) methodology and on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), with a set of temporal data extracted from Brazilian sectoral platforms. The results achieved point to a good convergence of the model, indicating better performance than a naive or trivial prediction. The efficiency obtained by the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient was 98% and the expectation is that for the year 2030, approximately 5.2 million ELVs will be produced in Brazil, of which only 78 thousand units would be effectively recycled, considering the current vehicle recycling rate in the country. Considering the scarcity of information that supports decision-making in waste management in Brazil, this study may also contribute to the proposition of alternatives that favor the proper management of automotive waste, providing a reference for the formulation and implementation of policies related to ELVs in the country.

A qualitative descriptive case study on home medical waste management in Brazil

A qualitative descriptive case study on home medical waste management in Brazil

Assessing the Connections between COVID-19 and Waste Management in Brazil

In addition to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, several countries—particularly in developing regions—faced serious additional challenges in the economic, social and environmental areas. In Brazil, one of these challenges refers to the changes in consumption caused by the lockdowns, and the environmental impacts caused by new patterns of waste generation. Against this background, this paper investigates the changes in consumption and waste generation in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides a technical contribution to the topic by comparing the perception of survey respondents on the amount of household waste produced before and during the pandemic, and cross-checking these with information on current aspects of policymaking, the findings suggest that the amount of some specific types of household waste has noticeably increased, challenging even more the local waste management systems. The data instrument was validated by a pre-test, prior to deployment. According to the respondents, packaging (both plastic and paper/cardboard) was the type of waste that reported the highest increase in generation during the lockdowns, which is in line with the results of increased consumption of food delivery within this period. The results also suggest that current waste management policies make Brazil ill-equipped to deal with one of the non-intended effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely impacted Latin America’s largest country.

The Sustainability in Civil Construction Waste Management in Brazil

By the year 2050, there is a projected growth of 66% in the world urban population, and in the year 2030, 41 megalopolises are estimated with more than 10 million inhabitants. Considering the accelerated urbanization and the amount of waste generated in the cities only increases, the disposal of construction waste in inappropriate places contributes to the degradation of the environmental quality. In the 2010-2019 period, there was a quantitative increase in these residues, from 33 million tons in 2010 to 44.5 million in 2019. The large volume has led city halls to spend a large amount of public resources on their collection, treatment and final disposition. Despite the existence of laws, those responsible ignore it, harming the environment and increasing the amount of illegal dumps. The main objective of this article is to study the sustainable development of waste management generated by civil construction in Brazil through a bibliographic review gathering the ideas and information in a single document. In addition, there are negative environmental impacts and their assessment helps environmental management programs and quantifies how much they can impact environmental quality and human health. Likewise, it was evidenced that the integration of technology and smart solutions in the waste management process brings with its innovations that facilitate the tasks of the projects and decision-making, generating value for each project related to the civil construction and construction activities. Contribute efforts to achieve the goals of sustainable development, especially those directly related to the construction sector.

A Perspective of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Plastic Waste Management and Cooperatives of Waste Pickers in Brazil

Brazil is the fourth largest producer of plastic waste in the world. Among all the challenges the country had faced in the development of public policies for the banning of single-use plastics, the new coronavirus pandemic scenario determined the suspension of these laws indefinitely. In 2020, Brazil became the global epicenter of COVID-19. This scenario changed the habit and behavior of Brazilian consumers, who increased the consumption of plastics due to their importance in applications as protective material. The country also has social problems related to waste management that depend mainly on waste pickers. These workers need social visibility and protection not only to face the current health crisis but also to guarantee their income and survival. This work aims to discuss the increase in single-use plastics that are not intended for recycling and the respective environmental, economic, and social impacts for the country. We demonstrate the lack of data on waste management in Brazil and highlight the importance of the social inclusion of waste pickers for a circular economy. Especially after the change of scenario with the COVID-19 pandemic, the country must have adequate planning and improvements in waste management, recycling programs, and political intervention to raising awareness among the population and guaranteeing social rights for waste pickers.

Municipal solid waste management decision-making during COVID-19 pandemic: a comparison between Brazil and Portugal

Decisions related to waste management were affected to contain the advance of the new coronavirus pandemic. Different measures have been adopted between countries around the world. This study aims to assess changes in decision-making on solid waste management in Brazil and Portugal during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the socioeconomic differences and the context of waste management in each country before the health crisis. A literature review was carried out on scientific bases, PubMed, Google Scholar and Web of Science. Differences were noted in decisions and guidelines for good practices in waste management, with measures being observed in a decentralized manner in Brazil, differently from what was observed in Portugal. In this way, the understanding of urban waste management during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil becomes complex, in addition to the territorial extension and the diverse social composition, due to the decentralization of decision-making, while Portugal centralizes decisions related to waste management and has a smaller population and territorial extension.

Solid waste policy in Brazil: learnings and challenges after a decade of implementation

The Brazilian National Solid Waste Policy (NSWP) was established in 2010. This article evaluates the NSWP influence on generation, collection, sorting and treatment of household solid waste (HSW), healthcare solid waste and construction and demolition (C&D) solid waste. We evaluated, by a segmented regression analysis, whether Brazilian per capita HSW generation changed after the NSWP. We found a statistical rupture on HSW generation rate, which decreased from 2012 to 2017. In contrast, more than 65% of HSW were disposed of in landfill in the last years, exceeding 80% in 2017, and there was a low efficacy of solid waste sorting at household level. The disposal of about 50% of the healthcare solid waste and 70% of the C&D solid waste are unknown. The solid waste management in Brazil has not shown optimistic advances in recent years despite the existence of the NSWP.

The challenge of urban solid waste management in Brazil

The National Solid Waste Policy (PNRS) and its regulation originated a new reference for the integrated and sustainable solid waste management in the country and new challenges for the implementation and improvement of the selective collection service provision in the municipalities. The purpose of this research is to identify the efficiency level of urban solid waste management in the Brazilian capitals during the period from 2002 to 2016. To measure the efficiency, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique was used. The sample consisted of 20 Brazilian capitals. After measuring efficiency, the logistic regression technique was used to measure the contribution of each variable used in the DEA technique. As a result, it was observed that the number of materials recovered is very low compared to the number of materials collected, the municipality that collected the most materials was Vitória in 2015 and the municipality that recovered the most waste was Florianópolis in 2013.

Pollution Credit Certificates Theory: An Analysis on the Quality of Solid Waste Management in Brazil

Purpose: This paper aims to introduce an economic instrument called Theory of Pollution Credit Certificates in the management of municipal solid waste in Brazil, in order to create opportunities to achieve the goal established in the above mentioned policy at lowest possible social costs. Methodology/Approach: The methodology adopted has as a starting point the “constructo” of a scenario in which a city comprised of five brazilian districts produces its urban solid waste made up of 50% organic material. In the proposed scenario, similar to what happens in practice, a fee for collection and treatment of organic material would be charged for two different situations. Findings: The result showed that the use of Pollution Credit Certificates Theory has a better cost-effectiveness for solid waste management because it allows reaching the environmental goal at a lower cost to society. Research Limitation/Implication: Subjectivity of the analysis, due to the “constructo” proposition in the studies. Originality/Value of paper: From the results obtained, we inferred that the use of the Pollution Certificates Theory for the management of brazilian municipal solid waste benefits from economies of scale as it allows in the scenario determined, that districts sell their spaces at the landfill and parallel to this, to promote the practice of composting organic waste in the municipality.

Disposal of pharmaceuticals wastes by the population of an outcrop area of the Guarani Aquifer System in Southern Brazil

Pharmaceutical waste is considered emerging pollutant that can contaminate water sources and underground water, besides is serious problem for waste management in Brazil. The objective of this study was to evaluate the pharmaceutical consumption for human use and the way expired and unused medicines are disposed by the population. The study was carried out in two neighborhoods of the Lages, under outcrop of the Guarani Aquifer, in southern Brazil. In this descriptive and quantitative study, data collection occurred between August and October of 2018 via a questionnaire completed by 309 participants. The questions addressed about sociodemographic data, information on the medicine consumption, disposal of pharmaceuticals residue and about the basic sanitation in the neighborhood. The pharmaceuticals class most used were anti-hypertension and diuretics, indicating an elevated occurrence of non-transmittable chronic illnesses. About 68% of participants stated that there are leftovers of medications after medical treatment and 70.2% that there is expired medication at household. The disposal of leftover and expired pharmaceutical was in domestic waste, followed by discharged into domestic sewage. Only a small percentage (&lt;15%) of the participants adequately dispose of their medication waste. The inadequate disposal of household pharmaceutical in the study area can result in contamination by chemical substances of the Guarani Aquifer and superficial waters.

Transitioning to a circular economy in developing countries: A collaborative approach for sharing responsibilities in solid waste management of a Brazilian craft brewery

The linear model practiced in developing countries as Brazil to solid waste management can no longer absorb the amount of waste generated by the cities’ economic activities, and it hinders the self-recovery ability of the environment leading to environmental problems. Consequently, it is necessary a transition to a circular economy model so that environmental problems may be avoided. Brazilian authorities have already been mobilized to seek ways to transitioning, and one way is centered on reverse logistics and shared responsibility for solid waste management laid down in Law No. 12,305/2010. However, this transition does not occur smoothly due to solid waste management in Brazil involves different segments of society, which implies different responsibilities for each segment, as well as a good interaction between them, but there is not an adequate approach to define the responsibilities. Therefore, this study seeks to develop a collaborative approach capable of defining responsibilities towards solid waste management. The proposed approach embedded three methods: Value Focused Thinking, Flexible and Interactive Tradeoff, and Shapley value. The approach was applied to a craft brewery located in a northeastern Brazilian city. The findings show that segments were able to define sustainable responsibilities for the tactical performance of solid waste management in transitioning to a circular economy.