Municipal program of selective waste collection in Santo André - SP: a policy cycle study

Abstract

Guarantee treatment and appropriate disposal to municipal solid waste is a challenge to municipal administrations, mainly because waste generation has increased more than population and big areas to landfills are few in big cities. Thus, since last 1980, in Brazil, a few cities have implemented municipal programs of selective waste collection in partnership with recyclables collectors organizations, that removes waste from landfills, increasing your lifetime. It is important to look at programs of selective waste collection as part of policy, emphasizing your administrative continuity and objectives. Therein it was sought to study Santo André's program of selective waste collection, between 1998 and 2011. The objective is to study how were formulation and implementation of Santo André's program of selective waste collection, in 1998, and how it has been making your monitoring and evaluation in the following years, until 1998. For this reason it was used policy cycle approach, that considers policy as a deliberative cycle, formed by several steps, constituting a dynamic and learning process. It was made bibliographical and documental review, such as qualitative semi-structured interviews with: managers from Serviço Municipal de Saneamento Ambiental de Santo André (Semasa); managers of two partner cooperatives of program (Coopcicla and Coop Cidade Limpa) and a random sample of six members of each cooperative. After the interviews, it was made questionnaire application to all recyclables collectors of Coopcicla and Coop Cidade Limpa, totalizing 79 members. In addiction, it was made technical visits with written and photographic records to public equipment: collect station, paper selection and recycling plants, recyclables selection centers, wood recycling plants. It was possible to notice that program of selective waste collection was formulated with the objective to cover all urban population; it was implemented, putting planned actions into practice, but there are not monitoring and evaluation, that would produce administrative learning. People participation is small, that reflects in low recyclables recovery rate: only 2.7% of municipal solid waste amount. Concerning cooperatives, the partnership with Semasa is not steady, members of cooperatives number has been reducing and there are not actions to face parallels recyclables collects. In the other hand, the cooperatives guarantee to your members bigger income than in former occupations, stability and inclusion. As a conclusion, it is not satisfactory that a municipal program of selective waste collection that exists for more than 10 years, has door to door selective waste collection in 100% of urban area, collect stations is able to remove less than 3% of municipal solid waste from landfill. Therein it is necessary to change the paradigm: selective collection does not mean offer the service; it is necessary "collecting in a selective way", with people participation. (AU)