Avaliação do gerenciamento dos resíduos sólidos especiais em shopping centers de Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais

Abstract

Nowadays there is a growing urge for reducing the volume of residues, which cause environmental impact, generated by several types of existing enterprises. Therefore, trade centers such as shopping malls, whose generation is quite significant, have the obligation to devise a plan capable of minimizing the amount of residue that is sent to the sanitaryembankment, thus increasing its useful life expectancy. Since there is a real deficiency of specific bibliographical material for attaining such agoal, this work aims at presenting a study based on observations made on site at some shopping malls located in the municipal district of Belo Horizonte, listing and commenting its results, thus allowing its use in researches and orientation of future administrative plans dealing with this kind of service. Three shopping malls have been chosen as our study targets, two of which are located in the southern area of the above-mentioned municipal district and one in the northern sectionof town. To attain even more accurate results, two sampling forms have been employed: the first one using the method of screening the total amount of residue generated by the establishment and weighing it by means of a manual scale. The second one by implementing aprocess of selective collection, that is, the distribution of color plastic bags to the shopkeepers for subsequent weighing of each segregated residue typology by means of an electronic scale. After reading the obtained results and performing the socioeconomic and cultural analysis of the area and its corresponding suburbs, it was inferred that the visitors of the first two establishments (in the southern zone), once they belong to a wealthier class area, not only buy more goods, thus consuming more, but also waste more than the other studied visitors to the third shopping mall. One might infer from this fact alone that, through the analysis of the obtained data in the samplings of the shopping malls located in the southern zone, there is a generation of organic residues and waste paper estimated to be around 5,000 kg/day; aluminum cans: 1,000kg/day; plastics: 2,000 kg/day and glasses: 500 kg/day. As for the other mall, located in the northern zone, we obtained the following results - organic residues: 1,000 kg/day; waste paper: 500 kg/day; aluminum cans: 50 kg/day and plastics: 40 kg/day. It was verified that these data are consistent in magnitude with those of the supermarkets belonging to these shopping malls.