Proposition Of Actions For Household Waste

Management From Experience Of São

Leopoldo/Brazil And Zurich/Switzerland
Ghesla, Pamela L. – UNISINOS
Gomes, Luciana P. – UNISINOS

CONTACT

Pamela Lisie Ghesla; UNISINOS; 429 Berthalina Kirsch Street, Igrejinha – RS, Brazil; +55 (51)
35454962; pamelaghesla@yahoo.com.br

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The role of municipalities in the household solid waste management has proved complex and often
inefficient, not attending the technical, environmental and financial resources. This paper examined
the cases of Sao Leopoldo (Brazil) and Zurich (Switzerland), in order to analyze the household
waste management and to propose actions of intervention in the two cities. Using information
collected in interviews applied to responsible agencies, each operational step was characterized and
developed a Waste Stream Mapping. The results allowed seeing the two management systems, and
comparing them. It was noted positively that the two municipalities have selective collection and
aim their waste properly, but the quality of processes in Sao Leopoldo is lower than Zurich,
resulting in a smaller volume of material re-inserted in the chain of production and increasing the
volume of waste sent to landfill. In other way, the management model of Zurich is more expensive,
especially about incineration, but the billing system and energy trading involves the people and pay
the operations. The research showed some points that can be improved in the two cities, which can
be on future a basis for other municipalities. It also supported the understanding that each step has
its management peculiarity, that must be planned and controlled, because the final quality of
management is attained by all steps together.

Keywords: household waste, waste management system, Sao Leopoldo, Zurich

INTRODUCTION

People generate solid waste since antiquity but, especially after the Industrial Revolution, the
natural absorption of waste has become insufficient to absorb all. Thereat, it became necessary to
exist the waste management by the governments. In Brazil, according to Federal Law N° 11.445
(BRAZIL, 2007), collection, transportation, treatment and disposal of household solid waste are
part of the public cleaning services.

The service is a matter of population health, if bad done, can cause the presence of disease-
transmitting vectors and water/earth contamination. From the environmental point of view, the
management of household solid waste can act in the reintegration of materials on industrial cycle
again. In this way, materials are saved and reduce the volume of waste sent to disposal, preserving
and reducing the impacts.

It is possible to find different ways to perform the household waste management, according to Un-
Habitat (2010) this variation occurs worldwide, with accumulation of private attempts.
In many Brazilian cities can be found precarious services, where part of the waste produced has an
uncertain destination, or the management is just the collection stage. The fragility can be identified
in the hiring of emergency services, especially when it is politically comfortable, without evaluating
the best proposals and working on the problem already established. In times of government
changes or contract renewals, management may also be affected, some programs that exist a long
time can be suddenly extinct, for example.

Some cities have not statistic and data about household waste, this make impossible to evaluate and
improve the management. Is also common to exist imbalance between expenditure and revenue
about procedures, which requires part of money from other sectors of municipalities.

To choose the best strategies that ensure the cost and efficiency of operations is one of the
challenges for municipalities. It requires comprehensive assessment and planning. In contrast, the
municipalities have available various methods to improve the recycling, to reduce costs and to
preserve the natural resources. The attention to the issue should be not only by governments but
also by public, scientific and academic groups, through studies and current research.

In order to analyze and propose actions to improve the household waste management from Sao
Leopoldo and Zurich, this paper will characterize the two distinct efforts deployed. In the end, will
be possible to see the differences between them and what can be used to other places.

METHODOLOGY

The south of Brasil (Sao Leopoldo city) and north of Switzerland ( Zurich city) was taken as a case
study for analyze different household waste management scenarios and comparing them. The
research was divided in data collection: documentary research, bibliographic research and direct
contacts.

The documentary research used the municipal laws from Sao Leopoldo and Zurich, reports,
spreadsheets and promotional materials. The bibliographic research reviewed the theoretical aspects
about the work themes.

The direct contacts were made by individual interviews with those responsible for the management
of each department in the both cities. Interview scripts were developed, semi-structured to attend
06 indicators: global, operational, economic, social, quality and political-institutional (SNIS, 2008).
Also was observed some operational steps of household waste management.

Figure 01 illustrates the methodology used in research.

 Fig 1: Methodology used on paper

RESULTS

Sao Leopoldo City

Sao Leopoldo is on state of Rio Grande do Sul, south of Brasil, has an area of 102.31 km2 and be 34
kilometers from the capital (Porto Alegre). According to IBGE (2010) 211.663 people live in the
city, distributed in 24 districts.

Its estimated by the mass collected that is produced in Sao Leopoldo around 178 t of household
waste management perr day, or 0.83 kg per capita. This value is expected to cities with over 500.000
inhabitants (MONTEIRO et al.,, 2001)
2001 in Brazil.

Moura in 2009 made the characterization of household solid waste in Sao Leopoldo, its indicated
that 58.6% is organic material, 13.3% is paper and paperboard, 12.3% is plastic, 4.5% is biological
contaminants, electronic and leather , 1.72% is glass, 1.52% is metal, 1.30%
1.30% is Tetrapak, 0.7%
0. is
wood, 0.7% is stone, earth and ceramic, 0.3% is polystyrene,
polystyrene, 0.3% is rubber and 0.2% is chemical
contaminants.

The management of household solid waste in Sao Leopoldo is performed by the Municipality
through the Municipal Public Cleaning, called SELIMP,
SELIMP, where work 51 people.
people This department
was created in 2010 and nd operate directly only in weeding, mowing, sweeping and collection of
some wastes. All other operational activities are outsourced by an office called SL Ambiental, the
contract is valid for 20 years.

The residents from Sao Leopoldo pay the services about

about waste management through the property
tax (IPTU), billed annually. The price varies according to the area of building, which does not assist
in minimizing waste generation because the number of people in each home varies greatly.
Currently is spent aboutt R$ 1.400.000,00 (US$
(U 809.249,00) per month (May – 2010 reference) only
to pay the SL Ambiental office. According
According with the Department, all money that come by the waste
tax cover just 30% of all costs, the remaining 70% is paid with funds from other sector of city hall.

Packaging: According to the municipal regulation, household waste must be properly packed and
ready in front of homes according to the official calendar. There is no official packing,
packing in general
people have theirr waste in plastic bags or cardboard boxes, they can’t be longer than two hours at
streets.

It is very common recyclable material to be mixed with other waste, the packing used are easy to
predation, being exposed to rain and street animals. Materials such
such as paper can’t be used when be
contacted with wet materials or reduce their commercial price. Other
Other problem is when flooding
happen, the bags moves through the streets causing streams obstruction and getting worst.

Collection and Transport: The collection

collection system (Figure 2) is shared in house-to-house
house recycling
collection (A Collection); house--to-house
house organic and not recyclable collection (B Collection) and
informally collection, made by collectors that live on city.

Fig 2:
2 Collection system from Sao Leopoldo

According to SELIMP, recycling collection is once a week in all city, from 8:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m.,
except the center of city, where is twice. All waste like paper, plastic, metal, glass and cooking oil is
collected. Other 100 points, as schools and
and government agencies have also this collection, but it is
made by Department, not by the contracted office.

The organic waste and/or not recyclable waste are collected three times a week, 7:00 a.m. – 3 p.m.
and 7:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. On center of city the
t collection is daily. This collection costs to City Hall
on May/2011 R$104,20/t (US$$ 60,23/t).
60

The costs about recycling collection is calculated in other way and was not reported,
reported only to rent the
trucks in May/2011 the cost was R$ 75.020,00 (US$ (U 43.942,00). The costs about large materials
collecting on streets was R$202.841,43 (US$117.249,00).
(U $117.249,00). The contracted office – SL Ambiental
does not say how much is each operations to them, just that has 65 people working there.
There are six compactor trucks that collect organic waste and five open trucks that collect recycling
waste. The compactor trucks road 21.000 km/Month and open trucks 9.000 km/month. This is the
most expansive operation of waste management in Sao Leopoldo.

SL Ambiental reported that the biggest difficulties on city is about people education, especially
about to separate the kind of wastes and dispose in the right collecting day. In some areas, the trucks
can’t go in raining days, in others, trucks have problems to road because the traffic of vehicles.

Screening: All material from the selective collection is forwarded to the Screening Units, which are
operated by five cooperatives. Have a sixth cooperative that operate on landfill, screening waste that
come from organic and not recyclable collection.

Cooperatives are agreements with the municipal administration, which provides the physical space,
equipment, light and water. They also receive R$ 4.500,00 (US$ 2.601,00) each three months to
send monthly reports.

The waste is sent to each Unit Screening in rotation system, all receive the material from all sectors
of the city. There is no weigh balance in all cooperatives, because of this, the precision of values
sent for screening is not exact, 50 t per day is estimated. The same happen to the sailed materials,
the values are not exactly known by SL Ambiental and SELIMP. It is seen that this step requires a
batter management and formal data.

The cooperative that operates the landfill received in April (2011), 3,700 tons of waste. Of these,
only 241 tons of recyclable materials were subsequently sold (6.5%). The place for sorting was
designed in 2005 to receive 90 t a day, but currently receives 150 t, which represents a great loss of
material to the landfill. The work team (23people) screen 10 t of waste a day, their salary is about
R$ 500,00 (US$ 289,00) to R$ 600,00 (US$ 347,00) per person .

The Screening Units of Sao Leopoldo work with a low cost to the public administration, help to
send lower materials to landfill and work as a social program, because the most of workers lived at
streets before. Evens so, the system does not meet its capacity and many workers still feel socially
excluded. There are many informal collectors working in Sao Leopoldo yet, Department has no
estimate of how many are and how much recyclable waste is not sent to official collection.

Treatment and Disposal: In the first half of 2011 were recycled approximately 2.042 t of
municipal solid waste. All material screened is sold for about 20 companies that sell to recycle
industries, re-introducing the material in the production chain. The revenue from recycling is about
R$ 254.000,00 (US$ 146.821,00), it could be larger if the sale was made directly to industry.
Organic waste could also be recycled in a composting system, which does not exist in municipal.

The landfill in Sao Leopoldo recives waste from city many years, the area is from City Hall but
operations is made by SL Ambiental. The leachate generated is treated in an equalization tank, two
anaerobic pools, four facultative pools and 2 maturation pools, complemented with a leachate
evaporator.

SELIMP paid in May (2011) R$ 320.253,45 (US$ 185.118,00) to dispose the waste at the landfill,
or R$ 83,81 per t (US$ 48,46/t). The closure of the landfill was scheduled for the end of the first
half of 2012, but because due to lack of space in the cell, the new landfill in São Leopoldo was
inaugurated in November 2011.
Zurich City

Zurich is at the northeast of Switzerland and is the capital of the Canton of Zurich. It is the largest
city in the country, with 91.88 km ², and has 384,271 inhabitants (STADT ZÜRICH, 2010). In ten
years, the city population increased by 20.000 people, mostly people from other countries.

The annual report clalled "Geschäftbericht 2010" estimated that Zurich produced about 120.000
tons of household waste in 2010. The value is very close to previous years, the daily average
generated per capita is 0.86 kg or 314 kg per year.

The materials sent to recycling exceeds the volume sent to incineration, from 120.00 t, 68 t were
recycled, especially paper and cardboard (22%), glass (9.52%) and the pruning and garden waste
(6.76%). In this number is not inserted the values to PET bottles. The remaining 52 tons were sent
for incineration.

The waste management of Zurich is made by the Department of Recycling and Disposal - ERZ, the
largest department of the Department of Civil Engineering and Waste Management. ERZ is also
responsible for the receipt of special waste in the city and the Canton of Zurich, water treatment and
sewage, street cleaning, composting plant, energy management and marketing of heat generated by
incineration.

In ERZ work approximately 900 people, and in sectors that involve the management of household
waste work 510 people. The only outsourced services is the collection and transport of paper and
cardboard, glass, metal, PET, cooking oil and textiles. These same companies sell the materials
collected, without having any payment by the municipality. The contracts are valid for 01 year.

The municipal tax about waste management is collected in 03 ways. The first is the annual tax for
infrastructure, which also appears in the service of wastewater treatment. This price is measured by
house - SFr.86,40 (US $ 92,90). The second is a special tax to industries and offices, that is
calculated by the number of workers - SFr.46,00 (US$ 49,46) per person. The third form is the
official bags to dispose waste, they are sold in supermarket from Zurich.

According to the ERZ, the institution goal is to cover 100% of waste management cost and to get a
reservation for the following year. The reserve left to 2011 was SFr. 130.534.000 (US$
140.359.140). The 2010 report presented that was obtained (SFr. 134.702.000) (US$ 144.840.860)
for services rendered, the Department investments, rentals, sales and marketing mainly for energy
and waste incineration private. The expenses was SFr. 108.681.000 (US$ 116.861.290) with
salaries, materials, services and investments.

Packaging: In 1993 Zurich implemented a system called "polluter pays", which requires (by city
ordinance) the population use official bags, called "Züri-Sack", to pack their waste. Züri-Sack
should be used to: plastics, hygiene materials, packaging of frozen products, light bulbs, Tetrapak,
food scraps (bones, meat) and non-recyclable waste.

The main purpose of the system is that the population to dispose the least possible recycling
material and to be more selective about packaging at the time chooses the products. The model also
helps in sizing the volume generated, since in most cases each family generates one bag per week.

The price of each bag varies with its size. Based on the values of 2011, the 17 liters bag costs SFr.0,
85 (US$ 0,91), 35 liters is SFr.1,70 (US$ 1,83), 60 liters is SFr.3,10 (US$ 3,33) and 110 liters is
SFr.5, 70 (US$ 6,12). According to ERZ, since this program was created, 24% less waste was to
incineration and 32% increase in recycling, they gradually reduced the number of collections in the
city. The fine for those who do not comply with the law is around sFr.250, 00 (US$
( 269), daily is
collected from 01 to 2.5 t of waste in illegal
i bags.

Collection and Transport: The collection is determined according to the kind of waste produced
(Figure 3). There are three ways of collection: the collection system by container to Züri-Bags and
garden waste (A Collection), ), the collection represented by the delivery of recyclable materials in
the Voluntary Delivery Points (B B Collection) and the collection house-to-house
house for paper,
pa cardboard
and textiles (C Collection).

Fig 3: Collection system from Zurich

People can dispose the official bagba 24 hours per day on plastic containers provided by the
Department. Containers has three sizes and the cost varies between SFr. 200,00 (US$ 215,00) and
SFr.350, 00 (US$ 376). Yearly 140 units are broken by population, mostly on fire. Other kind of
container is "underground" are constructed at the bottom of the sidewalks and store a larger quantity
of bags. The cost of construction and installation is estimated at between SFr.40.000, 00 (U.S. $
43,011) and SFr.50.000, 00 (U.S. $ 53,763) of which the City contributes
contributes SFr.3.000, 00 (U.S. $
3,226). In both cases (plastic containers and underground) collection occurs once a week in each
neighborhood.

In the case of pruning and garden waste, the system is similar to plastic containers, but these must
be purchased by the population and the service is contracted. The applicant must pay an annual fee
of SFr.47, 65 (US$ 51.00)) for its waste be collected once a week.

At ERZ – collection group work 169 people and operate 31 trucks. The collection is from 07:00
a.m. - 11:30 a.m. and from 02:00
:00 p.m.. - 05:00 p.m. These times were established according to the
municipal silence law, which does not allow sounds after the lunch time and at night. In 2010 were
collected 11.230.805 official bags.
bags

The same vehicles used on collection

ection are used to the transportation of waste,
waste each truck road 200
km/day. According to the ERZ, the collect use annual about SFr. 8.000,000,00
00 (US$
(US 8.602.151,00).

The Voluntary Delivery Points are divided into 03 different systems. The containers system, which
are distributed on the streets (about 160 points) and receive the materials as glass, metal, aluminum
and cooking oil. The trains system (called "Cargo-Tram" or "E-Tram" - to electrical and electronic
equipment) that receive bulky waste. And the "recycling centers" (Recyclinghöfe), one is next to the
administration and Hagenholz incineration and the second is located next to the composting plant
Werdhölzli.

Totally, each home in Zurich can dispose annually for free 400 kg of bulky waste in collecting
trains and recycling centers. Each year 04 coupons are delivered from 1 to 100 kg each, in all
residences. Are not accepted construction and demolition waste, pruning, paper and cardboard or
those who must be willing to Züri-Sack.

The collection of PET bottles also occurs through Voluntary Delivery Point (5.000 points), but in
Switzerland, their recycling is part of a program in partnership with a private company (PET-
Recycling). Therefore, the stations are located in the city's trade, including supermarkets, schools
and gas stations, not involving the ERZ.

Treatment and Disposal: Recycling is divided in 03 groups: that is sent to the substitution of raw
materials (as paper, cardboard, glass, metal, PET bottles, textiles), composting (pruning and garden
waste, food) and the generation of thermal and electrical energy (incineration). Composting can be
done in condominiums, through home composting, or plant directly in the ERZ - Werdhölzli, which
receives the waste (excluding food) by the monthly payment or charge.
Zurich incinerate their waste since 1904, there go the official waste bags, bulky waste, waste from
industry and commerce (which are not dangerous), timber, construction and demolition waste is not
recyclable and sludge from treatment plants and sewage water.

In the city there are two plants, one at Josefstrasse and other in Hagenholz. Together they
incinerated in 2010 a total of 371.417 t of waste. After it was generated 90.124 t of residuals,
78.957 t of slag, 10.012 t from electrostatic filter and 1,155 t of gases. Slag go to a kind of screen,
whereby the commercial value material (as aluminum) are sold for recycling. The remaining waste
is sent to a landfill for inert materials, located in Lufingen (8 km from Zurich). Every day, about
120 t are sent to the site, the cost is SFr. 75.00/t (US$ 80,65/t).

The electric energy from incineration plants is sent to public power. The heat generated is sold
(program called "Zürich Wärme") to 1.500 points, 41% residential, 31% service providers and 28%
industry and commerce. According to ERZ, the heat generated (between 90 ° C and 120 ° C) is
obtained from a mixture of components: 63% waste, wood 14.5%, 4% heat collected in the river
city (Limmat), 17% gas oil and 1.5%.

CONCLUSIONS

From the analyzes made in this paper, was possible to conclude that Sao Leopoldo and Zurich
management are according to the respective federal laws, but they both have points that could be
improved.

Sao Leopoldo does not have resources to keep all operations costs, the municipal tax is not enough
and steps are not planned to this. Was possible to see that the information between the contracted
office (SL Ambiental) and City Hall is not always clear, collaborating to exist some bad made
works and to lose data. Sao Leopoldo still works focused in the removal and disposal waste, the
minimization and treatment (specially about organic waste) is not worked. The environmental
education of people is compromised because the programs and results are not published
In Zurich the management methodology is large, especially about waste collection, it help to
increase the recycling but requires more control from Department. One point that help to control all
is that operations are made by ERZ, included own vehicles and equipment. The biggest cost of
management is the incineration, but the sailed energy, official packaging sailed and private services
help to keep the financial balance. Polluter-pays system influence people to choice products by
packing and ways to rejected it later.

The social and economic differences between the two cities change the liberty that each one has to
make choices and employ methods about waste management. Zurich has worked longer with
environmental education, this helps on collecting and recycling results. Even so, is clear that
population in both municipalities still participate passively by the establishment of rules and fines.

The household waste management must to be planned and executed continuously, population and
also the City Hall need a time of adaption. Some problems founded in management sometimes can
exist because other sectors of administration, an integrated municipal work is important to exist a
good system.

Even with different processes, Zurich and Sao Leopoldo uses landfill to disposal the residual waste,
this step can’t be eliminated from the chain of operations yet.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the municipalities from São Leopoldo and Zurich for provide the information and
give the interviews.

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