TIMBO / FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil, Jun 13 (IPS) – In 2014, Santa Catarina grew to become the primary and solely state freed from open-air rubbish dumps in Brazil. Now, 14 of its municipalities are looking for to additionally free themselves from landfills and make use of almost all city strong waste.
The Intermunicipal Consortium of the Center Itajaí Valley (Cimvi) expects to course of in recycling, biodigestion and composting greater than 90% of the rubbish, surpassing the 65% benchmark reached by the Nordic nations of Europe, emphasised its govt director, Fernando Tomaselli.
“It’s a utopia,” mentioned the chief president of the Brazilian Affiliation of Power from Waste (Abren), Yuri Schmitke.
“The unrealistic objective compromises the challenge,” he warned. A number of European nations, Japan and South Korea have already eradicated sanitary landfills – the areas for the ultimate disposal of strong waste – however resort to incineration to generate vitality with non-recyclable rubbish, he added.
Cimvi guidelines out that different. Its objective is to broaden recycling and the round financial system of waste to an unprecedented proportion. “Our obsession is to benefit from every thing, to show that rubbish doesn’t exist,” mentioned Tomaselli.
However recycling has limits. Europe, after many makes an attempt and advances, covers 25 % of waste on common and 32 % within the distinctive case of Germany. As well as, 19% of the waste nonetheless goes to landfills, in accordance with knowledge from Abren, which had its sixth annual congress in Florianopolis, capital of Santa Catarina, on June 5 and 6.
Cimvi was created in 1998, with solely 5 collaborating municipalities, to collectively handle a number of points, however not but rubbish. It reached its present composition of 14 municipalities in 2017 after taking up the administration of the sanitary landfill in 2016, beforehand in control of the water and sewage authorities.
Its headquarters was put in in Timbo, a city of 46 099 folks, in accordance with the 2022 nationwide census. The 14 municipalities had 283 594 residents that yr, probably the most populous being Indaial, with 71 549.
Landfill and recycling
The landfill receives rubbish from 5 different “companion” cities, along with the 14 within the consortium, with a complete of between 5,000 and seven,000 tons monthly. Environmental training campaigns in colleges, companies and the streets have progressively expanded selective waste assortment.
Yellow sacks have been popularized and disseminated the place the inhabitants put recyclable waste which, collected by the municipalities, are taken to the Waste Evaluation Heart (CVR I) on the Cimvi headquarters, on the outskirts of Timbo.
“At this time we get well 20 to 22% of recyclable waste, towards a Brazilian common of two%. We wish to attain 27%,” Tomaselli informed IPS.
“We obtain a median of 60 tons a day, 24 hours a day, in three shifts, Monday to Monday,” mentioned Rosane Valério, president of the Medio Vale Cooperative, employed to separate and ship the waste to buying corporations, at CVR I, the place 87 recyclers are employed.
The cooperative has one other unit to course of waste from two different close by cities, Ituporanga and Aurora, with a complete of 33 300 folks.
“Of the fabric acquired, we nonetheless discard 30% that comes blended or soiled with meals stays, generally blood that draws mosquitoes, glass and different harmful objects akin to syringes and medicines, which generate main difficulties for recycling,” defined Valério.
Thermoplastic
She regretted that “we have no idea the origin, there’s a lack of understanding of the inhabitants within the right disposal”. In any case, half of that 30% of discarded waste can be utilized for the manufacturing of thermoplastic, a tough materials like concrete, which is used to make benches for squares, sidewalks, pavements and partitions.
The cooperative already operates a pilot plant, with experimental manufacturing that has not but been offered externally. “The municipalities are the preliminary marketplace for the thermoplastic plates, in addition to for the compost from the composting,” says Tomaselli.
Abren’s president, Schmitke, is skeptical. The consortium municipalities have a restricted, inadequate demand, and the inhabitants doesn’t belief merchandise created from rubbish, he argued.
However thermoplastic has been round for 4 many years and now there’s gear that facilitates its manufacturing at a excessive temperature, 160 levels Celsius, and as an enter, half of the plastic that’s added to different waste, akin to textiles, is sufficient, countered the director of Cimvi.
Using native waste will take a leap ahead with the inauguration of CVR II, which is anticipated in early 2026 and can use a big a part of the natural waste for the manufacturing of biogas and biofertilizers. One other half will go to composting.
“The objective is to benefit from 100% or 98%,” for which options should be looked for waste, the “frequent rubbish” for which there are nonetheless no methods to recycle, he mentioned.
Bottlenecks
One stumbling block is selective assortment, which must be perfected. “In Milan, Italy, 5 varieties of rubbish are separated on the supply, be it meals, plastics, paper, metals or glass. Right here, it’s tougher as a result of every thing is blended collectively,” mentioned Tomaselli.
That’s the reason Cimvi provides precedence to environmental training, by means of a number of campaigns akin to “Vale reciclar”, and sustainable tourism, which highlights the beauties of the so-called European Valley, which incorporates different municipalities along with the 14 consortium members.
The Girasol Park was additionally created for this objective, a vacationer complicated that features the landfill, the Cimvi services and the encompassing forest, with trails for walks, mentioned Jaqueline Wagenknetht, environmental training advisor.
Design and poetry contests amongst native college students search to advertise the valley, which is known as European as a result of its inhabitants consists of many immigrants, particularly Germans, Italians and Poles.
The identify Sunflower was chosen for the park as a result of, along with its magnificence, the flower symbolizes sustainability, as a supply of oil and biofuel, the advisor defined.
Cimvi advantages from the experiences of São Bento do Sul, a municipality of 83 277 folks, 120 kilometers north of Timbo, which has the same program that seeks to make use of as much as 100% of the waste.
A technique of dehydration of the natural half permits a greater use of the waste, defined Jacó Phoren, guide of the corporate 100lixo, which is concerned within the challenge, throughout his speech on the Abren congress on June 6.
Fostering new corporations that generate options for the waste business is one other focus of Cimvi, mentioned Tomaselli.
In Curitibanos, a metropolis 185 kilometers southwest of Timbo, with 40 045 folks, the corporate Inventus Ambiental claims to have invented gear that may facilitate the separation of rubbish for higher vitality restoration or recycling, lowering the waste that makes landfills larger.
Its pilot challenge can be inaugurated in a couple of months and is predicated on the usage of 90-degree warmth to deal with natural materials, knowledgeable Dirnei Ferri, director of the corporate.
Santa Catarina has already eradicated open dumps, though it’s ignored if all of them have been cleaned up. Now it’s a matter of “breaking the landfill trench”, mentioned Tomaselli.
“Now we have 36 landfills within the state, solely three public, the remainder are non-public and there’s little curiosity in altering the system, as a result of whoever dominates the landfill additionally dominates the rubbish assortment service,” he concluded.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Unique supply: Inter Press Service
