Pathways to Urban Sustainability: An Investigation of the Economic Potential of Untreated Household Solid Waste (HSW) in the City of São Paulo

• Main Authors: Vilma Geni Slomski, Ivan Carlos Silva Lima, Valmor Slomski, Tiago Slavov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: urban sustainability; household solid waste; economic potential; gravimetry; São Paulo; Brazil
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/13/5249

<b> </b>The depletion of natural resources, the useful life of landfill sites, and the amount of garbage accumulating all challenge public policy to manage urban solid waste. We identified the economic potential for unused solid waste (HSW) in São Paulo in 2018 to be USD 637,633,836.04 through descriptive quantitative research and documentary analysis in the collected data. This amount comes from five sources, with the majority coming from internalizing private cost credits (45.58%), followed by recycling (42.21%), carbon credits (5.46%), refuse-derived fuel (3.77%), and organic compounds (2.98%). This potential assumes the implantation of waste sorting plants that generate jobs, reduce public expenses, and provide environmental benefits such as forest protection, water, and minerals. The environmentally adequate final destination of HSW constitutes an economic and socio-environmental measure that enables the reverse logistics of the business sector and urban sustainability. Consequently, the economic potential of HSW, generated from its sorting and marketing, could provide a positive contribution with the mitigation of environmental impacts, in addition to income generation and social inclusion.