Resíduos sólidos urbanos (RSU): um retrato da economia circular da cidade de Recife

Abstract

The generation of municipal solid waste is expected to grow significantly by 2050 in developing countries, making them the largest generators of solid waste in the world, and the Circular Economy (CE) is reflected as an alternative to deal with this issue. In countries like Brazil, the collectors of recyclable materials are important players for the reinsertion of the materials in the productive cycle. The present research aimed to identify how the SWR-related CE occurs in the city of Recife and to analyze the participation of the waste pickers in this context. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 67 of the 125 organized collectors recognized by the city government and bibliographic and documentary research. As a result, for the first specific objective the structure of the CE was described, in which it was noticed that the collectors of recyclable materials are responsible for allowing the closing of the MSW cycle through the EcoRecife Program, allowing the commercialization of these residues through middlemen or directly. The insertion of the collectors in the EcoRecife Program demonstrates the City Hall's intention to improve the management of USW in the municipality, plus the recent initiative to encourage the recycling of collected plastic through the Recicla Mais program. For the second specific objective, we noticed the lack of consistency of the data on the generation and destination of SUW and made available by the National Sanitation Information System (SNIS) when compared to other official data sources. As for the collectors, only 1 (one) cooperative claimed to have the history of quantitative data on the waste received, however, it chose not to provide them for the research. Another 4 (four) cooperatives had records of the historical quantity of waste and provided them for the research, but the periods were less than 2 years and had no record pattern. The other 4 (four) organizations claimed not to have any historical records, because they worked only with data from the period, discarding the records after receiving the payments. This scenario made it impossible to make any meaningful analyses about the waste collected by the waste picker organizations, not allowing the proposed specific objective to be reached. For the third specific objective, the main challenges and incentives of the waste picker profession were identified. The incentives most considered were those related to income generation, contribution to the preservation of the environment, and the maintenance of the city's cleanliness. The challenges were issues related to the incorrect and inadequate disposal of MSW and the lack of recognition by society of the work of waste pickers, respectively. The study concluded that organized waste pickers play a key role in closing the MSW cycle and that there is a need for improvement in the management and control of MSW so that public policies can be developed to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).