Caracterização física de resíduos sólidos gerados em ambiente escolar e eficiência de estratégias de sensibilização na qualidade da segregação na fonte

Abstract

Proper solid waste management is one of the great challenges of today's society. Federal Law 12,305 / 2010, which establishes the National Solid Waste Policy, is considered a milestone for waste management in every country, as it establishes principles, responsibilities and methodologies for waste management aimed at its proper management. Associated to the provisions of this Law, in the city of Londrina-PR, Decree No. 769/2009, among other measures, defines the responsibilities of the big solid waste generator. In this context, the objective of this work was to characterize and monitor the solid waste generated in a school in Londrina-PR, classified as a major generator, before and after the implementation of environmental awareness strategies of its school community. The work was carried out in four stages during four months: diagnosis (physical characterization of the waste and perception of the school community about waste disposal); Proposals for intervention (environmental awareness actions such as solidarity gymnastics, lectures in the classroom and qualitative monitoring of bins); Post-intervention data collection (analogous to diagnosis); And evaluation of the process. To characterize the residues generated, physical parameters such as per capita generation, gravimetric composition and apparent specific mass were used, and the community's perception about waste disposal was evaluated through the application and analysis of a questionnaire to students, teachers and employees. It was verified that the school generates, on average, 1,900 liters of solid waste per week, being 22,5 % considered as organic and wastes and 77,5 % as recyclable. The results indicated that the environmental awareness actions resulted in the improvement of the waste segregation process, reducing the incorrect disposal at the source, but did not influence the physical characteristics of the waste. Following the interventions, interviewees' performance improvement was observed in 8 out of 11 questions on waste disposal. It should be noted that the success of the project implemented in the school is due to the manager's commitment and actors involved in waste management in the institution, as well as the involvement of the entire school community to improve the quality of waste segregation, the agenda of the day.