Waste Management

Final waste disposal can be problematic in Brazil. Incineration is an effective method, however incinerators are expensive to purchase, operate and maintain, eliminating them as an option for most cities in Brazil. Instead, Brazil relies on dumps and landfills. There are some city landfills thats are described to be “tidy” as the layers of waste appear to be organized and others that are very unsanitary. One of the first things people see in Brazil would be the landfill  since it is located on the way from the airport. One can see home waste dumped directly into the open sewers leading straight to the bay. As municipality administrators in Brazil begin to understand the risks associated with untreated waste in open dumping areas, more dumps are being closed or converted to sanitary landfills. At some Brazilian landfills, clean development mechanism (CDM) projects are approved to collect the gases produced on-site. For example, a landfill in Nova Iguaçu, methane is collected and converted into electricity. 

Brazil’s waste management challenges are not like those of countries such as India or China, which experience rapid urban growth because Brazil has a stable population growth rate. Brazil’s greatest waste management hurdle to overcome is acquiring adequate financing. Despite this difficulty, they do find creative, responsible solutions to many of their problems in order to deliver satisfactory collection services, recycling programs and street cleaning for their citizens. However, in poorer neighbourhoods, trash is a visible problem.

The majority of Brazil’s municipal authorities are aware that efficient waste management is important to cities, as improvements are being made. As Brazil’s major problem is financing, I would say that they should fund for a better waste management strategy, such as incinerators. There are different ways government can fund for this improvement such as gradually raising taxes. Tax payers should understand this increase since it is for the best of their health and environment. Another way to make an improvement would be to work on the poorer neighbourhoods. The main areas of the city don’t have much of a trash problem since there are daily street sweepers, and garbage pickups throughout the city centre and middle class neighbourhoods. Since trash is not a problem for the main areas instead of having daily street cleaners and daily garbage pickups, a suggestion would be to split it with the poorer areas, where trash is problematic.