Gestão de Resíduos Sólidos em Centros Comerciais do Município ...

5
ABSTRACT
Presently, the problems associated with solid waste management are complex due to
the quantities and the diverse nature of wastes, the enlargement of urban areas as
well as the emerging limitations of both energy and raw materials. As a consequence,
if solid waste management is to be accomplished in an efficient and orderly manner,
the fundamental aspects and relationships involved must be identified, adjusted for
uniformity of data, and clearly understood. Besides these aspects, and due to
operational characteristics, solid waste generation and final disposal can be related
to both health problems and environmental contamination. If one of the steps in the
arrangement of solid waste management hierarchy is to be considered, the efficiency
of separation has to be worked very effectively. Thus, regarding municipal solid
waste management and in order to comply with municipal regulations, generators
such as shopping centres must implement solid waste management programmes as
is the case in Curitiba, Brazil, where the Municipal Administration has issued laws,
rules and benchmarks to be a basis for a Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP).
Based on this premises, the main goal of this research was to evaluate solid waste
management plans in shopping centers located in Curitiba, Parana, hence, twenty
establishments were selected plus another one in the city of Sao Paulo, which is
certified ISO 14001 and was chosen as a control element. To carry out this research
a questionnaire was defined and applied to the issued shopping centres for data
collection; SWMP were evaluated and ranked; and finally the economic value for
recycling wastes was established. As a result of this research it was identified that
environmental education actions were not of primary importance among the shopping
centres when customers, employees and shop owners were taken into consideration.
Another important result was that environmental quality certification parameters
would be of great importance if applied to water and energy consumption, as it was
observed in the shopping centre used as control element. The statistical analysis
applied to the collected data confirmed that containers differ based on the size of the
shopping centre. The application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method made
possible to establish a ranking among shopping centres with regard to solid waste
management programs. Based on economic value analysis performed for each
shopping centre, it could be inferred that recycling can be associated to greater
sustainability for the collection, separation and sale of wastes with economic value.
Key-words: solid waste management; shopping centres; AHP; economic value
analysis