One of the main promises of the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) for the environmental area, the end of landfills and controlled landfills in the country has been moving at a slow pace. In the current tune, the goal of stopping the use of these places in 2024 will delay almost 40 years – the goal would only be reached in 2063.
Data from the annual overview prepared by Abrelpe, an association that brings together companies in the garbage collection sector, indicate that in 2018 there were 3,001 municipalities without sanitary landfills, allocating waste to dumps and controlled landfills. In 2020, there were 2,868 municipalities.
This means that there was evolution in 133 municipalities. At this rate, it would take another 43 years to eliminate landfills, which would set the government’s target for 2063.
The pace is slower than that seen from 2017 to 2018, when the number of municipalities with inadequate disposal fell from 3,352 to 3,001.
The current management launched, in April 2019, the zero waste program, led by the then minister Ricardo Salles, who was fired in 2021.
The objective was, with an initiative aimed at cities, to counter the failure of the government’s environmental policy for Brazilian biomes, especially the Amazon, where there has been the greatest deforestation in the last 15 years.
On the 13th, at an event at Palácio do Planalto, Bolsonaro and the current Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, signed the decree establishing the National Solid Waste Plan. He predicts the end of waste disposal in dumps and controlled landfills from 2024, but the pace of Lixão Zero, a showcase for Salles, Leite and Bolsonaro, shows that this would only occur in 2063.
A visit to one of these dumps shows the harsh reality of those who live there.
The dozens of collectors who search the Águas Lindas de Goiás dump every day, in the surroundings of the Federal District, hope to be in the best place in the queue around 5 pm, when a truck with garbage collected in Brasília appears daily.
With the crisis, the slowing down of the pandemic and the loss of income in the two years that have passed, there are more and more people there. The crowd is to be at the front when the truck with garbage arrives that would be from Ceilândia, which has more valuable material than that of Águas Lindas, a poor city 50 kilometers from the center of Brasília.
“From Águas Lindas, only the ‘bagaça’ comes, because there are a lot of collectors on the street, who collect the material before arriving here”, says Márcio Jesus, 30, who spent his entire life at the dump. “From the DF, more material comes, including cans. But we don’t give preference, that’s what comes.”
Jesus, father of two children, is from Feira de Santana (BA). He has been in Águas Lindas since his early years. In the city’s open-air dump, “as long as we can understand”. “My mother used to bring me here in the wheelbarrow,” he says.
The almost eternal link with the dump, which is repeated with dozens of collectors who are there in subhuman working conditions, is evidence of a historic failure. Brazil does not move and cannot eliminate the dumps and controlled landfills, another inappropriate way to dispose of garbage.
The Ministry of the Environment uses different numbers from those presented by Abrelpe, considered a reference in the sector, to defend that the reduction of dumps is moving at a faster pace.
The folder uses numbers from a government partner entity since the beginning of the Salles administration, Abetre, which brings together companies interested in granting waste management. According to the ministry, 645 dumps have been closed since 2019, with 2,612 remaining.
“The closure of dumps cannot be calculated by means of a simple rule of three. It depends on a set of structuring measures to enable the technical and economic viability of the closure”, said the Ministry of the Environment, in a note. “It’s not yet 2024 to say something has or hasn’t been achieved.”
Abetre updates the data more frequently and accurately, which is why the folder uses the association’s data, according to the note.
“Lixão Zero is in full operation, fulfilling its objectives and with expressive results. It was created to reverse the low result obtained in the eight years following the launch of the National Solid Waste Policy, in 2010, a period that covered three administrations in the Federal Executive – these, yes, without any expressive result on the subject.”
At least six cities around Brasília still do not have a sanitary landfill. Águas Lindas, for example, has no ongoing partnership with the federal government to change this reality, according to the city government.
“The municipality has been working to comply with the legislation, but has faced locational and financial difficulties like most,” the city said in a statement.
The goal of eliminating all dumps by 2024 is already included in the 2020 law that updated the legal framework for basic sanitation. The schedule provided for by law is also delayed.
One solution proposed by the Bolsonaro government, mentioned in the National Solid Waste Plan, is to charge 100% of Brazilians, also by 2024, an urban cleaning fee. Data from 2020 show that this charge is made by 29.2% of municipalities.
The first draft of the plan predicted that 100% billing would only be achieved in 2040.
The determination is also expressed in the new sanitation framework, according to the ministry. “The plan only points to the legal command, as it could not be otherwise.”
At the Águas Lindas dump, collectors share space with vultures. Brasilia’s garbage truck unloads a lot of leftover food, collected from restaurants. These remains are also of interest to a portion of the collectors, who collect them to feed pigs.
Both Águas Lindas and the DF say that there are no trucks from the DF government dumping waste at the dump in the surrounding city. Brasília’s garbage goes to a sanitary landfill, according to the local government.
What may be happening is a disposal by the initiative of large waste generators, according to the SLU (Service of Urban Cleaning of the DF), which is an environmental crime.
Laura Tauane has just turned 18. It’s been 11 years in the dump, first with her mother, now with her husband. “It’s been a lifetime here, and it’s been the same. I wanted to do anything other than work here,” says the mother of three.
Aurineide dos Santos arrived at the dump when she was 40 years old. She is 54. Three of her eight children accompany her in the collection. The most popular days at the dump bring together up to 70 people, she says.
The Ministry of the Environment said it supported the municipalities in closing the dumps. Asked about the dumps around Brasília, he said that the matter should be discussed with the city halls.
The municipality of Águas Lindas claimed to have sanctioned a law for integrated waste management and said it was working to identify alternative disposal solutions. “The collectors are organizing themselves into a cooperative in order to have access to resources and better working conditions.”
