TITLE:
The Emerging Issue of Solid Waste Disposal Sites Emissions in Developing Countries: The Case of Brazil
AUTHORS:
André Luiz Bufoni, Marcia da Silva Carvalho, Luciano Basto Oliveira, Luiz Pinguelli Rosa
KEYWORDS:
Landfill Gas, Strategy, Greenhouse Gas, Waste Management
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.5 No.10,
July
30,
2014
ABSTRACT: While the main concerns with municipal solid waste in developed countries
like the European Union and the United States are to reduce and recycle the
energy recover in order to drastically reduce the residues disposal to
landfill, for developing countries the targets on waste management are much
more basic. This seems to be the case in Brazil that with a new regulation, it still
attempts to eradicate the inadequate waste disposal for open dumps. Thus, the
aim of this paper is to depict the context, the criteria and discuss the
strategies used for: the municipalities achieve the goals and adhere the plan;
choice and configuration of disposal sites; and economic instruments adopted
and bringing the whole scenario to discussion, including methane emissions
inventory thru the case study of the Rio de Janeiro State. The Rio de Janeiro
State municipal solid waste management scenario has drastically changed in last
five years from 9% of residues sent to adequate destinations, to the
perspective of eradication of open dumps before the end of 2014. The results
indicate that only adequate disposal of waste is mandatory with the prevalence
of the sanitation approach. The evidences also indicate that planning goals to
reduce waste are modest and the landfill gas recover is generally accepted as
the optimal solution. This paper concludes that, unless the stakeholders add to
the plan a more aggressive policy to increment, the competitiveness of other
waste technologies that favor the landfilling reduction and energy recover, Rio
de Janeiro State will face the increase of landfill numbers and sizes,
management cost, environmental and leachate impact, post-closure care expenses,
contaminating life-span, and methane emissions.