Gerenciamento de resíduos sólidos urbanos com abordagem da perspectiva de ciclo de vida e da economia circular : um estudo de caso

Abstract

The management of urban solid waste (MSW) is one of society's biggest challenges and has caused serious impacts on the environment, the economy and public health, in addition to being considered an obstacle to the sustainability of the sector, especially in developing countries, such as Brazil. Thus, the main objective of this research was to analyze the sustainability of the technological route of urban solid waste, of household origin, in João Pessoa/Paraíba – Brazil, from the perspective of the life cycle and circular economy considering the environmental, economic and social dimensions. The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (ASCV) methodology was used, which is composed of the Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) methods. Initially, the technological route for household waste was identified and to carry out the LCA three more scenarios were developed with different waste recovery targets. The LCA was carried out using the SIMAPRO software (version 9.2.0.2), the CML impact assessment method and the categories were selected: global warming, ozone layer destruction, photochemical oxidation, acidification and eutrophication. For the economic aspect, the CCV approach was used with a survey of the main costs associated with the existing technological route for regular and selective collection, in 2018, as well as the benefits obtained from the selective collection program, recycling and composting. The economic performance of the selective collection program was analyzed using the benefit/cost analysis (ABC) method. The LCA-S was carried out through the application of questionnaires with the following stakeholders: workers, users and governance. The analysis of the results of the environmental dimension indicated that the existing technological route is the one that presents the greatest environmental impacts, with, in general, the landfill, collection and transportation being the steps that contributed the most. recycling had positive impacts in all scenarios analyzed. Concerning costs, selective collection proved to be 1.9 times more expensive than regular collection, however, the socioeconomic benefits are quite positive, including the generation of income for collectors of recyclable materials and better environmental performance through the practice of recycling. In addition, the reduction in energy consumption and reductions in CO2eq. emissions. were observed in the scenarios analyzed by both recycling and the practice of composting, providing environmental and economic benefits to the sector. In social performance, the labor benefits category presented the worst result, followed by the categories of governance, local development, socioeconomic condition, professional development and equal opportunities/discrimination. The expansion of circular economy principles, such as recycling and composting, has strongly contributed to promoting the sustainability of the system by promoting the recovery of raw materials, reducing emissions and costs, as well as the possibility of improving workers' income and their living conditions. The study concludes that the ASCV proved to be efficient in the joint assessment of the three pillars of sustainability by measuring the environmental, economic and social impacts of the sector, in addition to enabling the identification of the main points that require greater attention by decision-makers