Aterro sanitário simplificado: uma alternativa para disposição de resíduos sólidos de pequenos municípios.

Abstract

Government agencies recommend that domestic waste should be disposed off in properly managed sanitary or controlled landfills. However, solid waste management in small and middle size town landfills of Northeast Brazil has been hampered by the absence of basic operational conditions, such as no environmental education of the population, inappropriate landfill management, no specific budgetary funds in government agencies, and no demand or industrial scale that economically justifies recycling the materials present in domestic waste. In the present study, a concept of simplified projects of sanitary landfills is proposed to the specific demands of small and middle size towns of Northeast Brazil that takes into account the current environmental regulation concerning the deposition of solid wastes. I t is based on the Simplified Sanitary Landfill (ASS) that can be an alternative for the final deposition of urban solid residues that reduces the environmental, social and economic impacts generated by domestic wastes. Implantation costs associated to ASS are relatively lower than those associated to sanitary and controlled landfills. Management simplicity of ASS makes it easy for government agencies to implement its use at small towns in Northeast Brazil.