Gestão do resíduo sólido urbano para a recuperação energética

Abstract

The municipal management of urban solid waste faces complex challenges in dynamic scenarios of constant increase in the quantities and types of materials discarded in cities. This requires that the public power be aligned with the private sector to establish legislative guidelines for companies to make investments in technologies that best suit the characteristics of solid waste generated and maximize operational and financial returns. The choice of Waste to Energy technology for local and correctly satisfactory application must be aligned with the specificities of each region and those responsible for waste management need to act in an integrated and coordinated manner. The present study seeks to demonstrate the growth of waste generation worldwide and locally in Brazil, discussing the dynamics of waste management among local actors to emphasize the various aspects that encompass and interfere in the application of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) technology for the energy recovery of waste in urban centers. Emphasis is placed mainly on the application of heat treatment technology by incineration as a possible and technically feasible way worldwide to carry out the treatment of waste in the generation of energy and heat with injections into local networks. With the investigative purpose of understanding more clearly the application of MSW management at the municipal level, a field visit was carried out in some entities responsible for waste management in Belo Horizonte and the production processes of the MSW treatment chain with their characteristics were presented. In this way, the main initiatives developed by the entities responsible for waste management worldwide and in Brazil are identified, exposing the challenges encountered both for the energy recovery of urban solid waste and to generate the lowest possible environmental impact in the application of WtE technologies.