Resíduos sólidos recicláveis e não-recicláveis produzidos no Centro de Tecnologia da UFSM

Abstract

With the increase of solid waste production, it arouses the need to establish public policies that allow its proper management, reducing its impacts on the environment. Solid waste management involves controlling the stages of generation, identification, conditioning, collecting, treatment and final disposal of these materials, and as its main benefit, it allows the identification of ways to reduce, to recovery and to recycle in the generation source. The first step in order to implement these systems is the diagnosis of the source, volume and the characterization of the solid waste in the institution. The universities are compared to small urban centers, with a generation of solid waste that presents great heterogeneity as to its origin and dangerousness. In this context, the Federal University of Santa Maria lacks of data regarding the generation and characterization of recyclable and non-recyclable solid waste production in its different administrative units. Therefore, the present study aimed to characterize the solid waste management system for the municipal and selective collection of the university unit of the Technology Center from the Federal University of Santa Maria. A sampling plan was established that comprised the 2018 academic year, covering five campaigns for the data collect, in which was the qualitative and quantitative characterization of solid wastes. It has been identified that the established ways of packaging to separate recyclable waste (using colored bags) and non-recyclable (using black bags) is not efficient in the unit. Considering the rate of generation, the Technology Center shows a value of 19.62 g.user-1.day-1, which represents a low value when compared to other universities of higher education. The overall composition of the university unit presented the highest percentages for: organic wastes (27.1%), wastes (23.3%), paper / cardboard (22.9%), plastics (8.2%). In terms of volume, the highest percentages were observed for plastics (35.3%), paper / paperboard (23.8%), waste (12.5%). Specific disposal waste, such as laboratories (0.4%), electronics (1.2%) and maintenance (2.6%) are also discarded along with the recyclable and non-recyclable waste from the university unit. The residues identified as potential sources of reduction on its consumption were disposable plastic cups, with a disposal 3.8 times higher than polystyrene cups, which are also subject to reduction actions, and PET bottles, discarded 2.0 times more than aluminum cans. This way, awareness campaigns to minimize these discards should be carried out together with the academic community.