Gerenciamento de resíduos sólidos em instituições federais de ensino superior do Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

With the accelerated human population growth and the resulting increase of production and consumption, the modern society has been facing with one of its greatest challenges: how to deal with the huge generation of solid wastes across the planet. This survey addresses the scenario of the Federal Institutions of Higher Education (FIHE) in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, with respect to the management of solid wastes, highlighting the experiences, innovations, facilitating factors, difficulties and challenges. The research assumed an exploratory and descriptive character by means of investigation. This survey is characterized as qualitative analysis. Data collection included the Workshop of the 1st International Forum of Ecoinovar and interviews with managers and specialists from the FIHEs investigated, and semi-structured questionnaires were administered to the managers and faculties in charge of solid wastes from each institution that participated in this survey. As a whole, the results indicated that everyone recognizes the importance of sustainable management of solid wastes, the need for a change in the paradigm not only in the institutions, but the government, society and the industry as well, where it was observed that Environmental Education is one of the most important and key instruments to create sensitization and awareness in this process, and is necessary in every field and instances and should be part of the grid of all courses. The survey indicates that the problems found in relation to the management of solid wastes is the operation of solid wastes, lack of human resources and awareness of the people involved, ingrained culture and habits, cultural resistance, lack of structure and equipment, communication difficulties between the waste-producing industries, lack of information/education of the community that participates in the institutions, lack of infrastructure for the storage and transportation of recyclable wastes, lack of resources in the institutions to manage the wastes properly, lack of environmental sensitization and awareness in setting and implementing policies for solid wastes management.