Identification of suitable areas for construction of landfill and waste selection and composting plants in the mesoregion of Zona da Mata, Minas Gerais

ABSTRACT

Inappropriate solid waste disposal is found in 60% of Brazilian cities and, in most cases, site selection does not follow legal or regulatory restrictions. In the Zona da Mata region, southeast Brazil, this process is still more problematic because of the large permanent protection areas, which results in a low number of available areas for waste treatment. Considering multiple cities consortium as an alternative to ensure solid waste disposal sites in Minas Gerais state, the Minas Gerais Environmental Foundation (FEAM), using the State System of Environment and Water Resources (SISEMA), subdivided the state in optimum territorial arrangements (ATOs), which comprise units to be used in waste management shared by the cities within each ATO. Considering that the most adopted forms for appropriate solid waste treatment in Brazil are landfills and plants for sorting and composting, this study aimed to determine suitable areas for landfill and plants for waste sorting and composting in the Zona da Mata region. Furthermore, site surface sizes to each ATO were calculated and the number of suitable areas for each ATO was determined. A detailed and extensive database was generated by collecting spatial information that could be used in geoprocessing softwares (ArcGIS and IDRISI Taiga) to develop spatial analysis. In general, the analysis resulted in a reduced number of suitable sites, thus making it difficult to use ATOs in shared waste management.

Keywords:
solid waste disposal; multicriteria analysis; sanitary landfill; plants for waste selection and composing