Educação ambiental como instrumento para o correto descarte de resíduos de medicamentos veterinários de uma cooperativa de alimentos da Serra Gaúcha/RS

Abstract

To meet the food demand of the world's population, farmers intensify the use of veterinary products by ensuring the production of food of animal origin. These activities generate solid waste from health services (RSS) and due to the lack of effective collection for them, used veterinary medicines are accumulated in rural properties, being discarded inadequately and can cause health problems to the worker and other living beings, as well as several environmental impacts to the environment. Faced with this environmental problem, reverse logistics is an option to solve the problem. This work aims to evaluate a reverse logistics program for veterinary drugs and the Health Waste Management Plan implemented in agricultural and livestock stores, verifying the correct performance and knowledge of employees who sell veterinary products and receive the RSS, seeking the environmental awareness of these and the customers for the correct discard. A questionnaire was applied evaluating the actions and sensitization of the employees and the RSS management of all the units of a cooperative. Environmental education was practiced through guidelines and the delivery of folders to all involved. The results indicate that the reverse logistics program is structured, that the employees are aware of the problems caused by the inappropriate disposal of medicines, all employees are know about their essential role and accept the return of the waste, the research indicated deficiency in internal training of the Program for the Management of Solid Waste of Health (PGRSS) to employees, which may lead to incorrect disposal, requiring the application of environmental education actions to sensitize them, as well as to the clients, in order to help in the correct disposal of waste of empty containers and used medicines.