SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT BY CONSIDERATION OF THE POLLUTION CREDIT CERTIFICATES THEORY

The solid waste management in Brazil was boosted with the establishment of the National Solid Waste Policy. From then on, it became necessary to prepare a Waste Management Plan in order to better understand the problem of collection and disposal of waste and to plan management actions necessary for the smooth progress of the plan. This paper aims to introduce an economic instrument called Theory of Pollution Credit Certificates in the management of municipal solid waste in order to create opportunities to achieve the goal established in the above mentioned policy at lowest possible social costs. This instrument was formulated to give social actors economic stimuli so that they can better manage their solid waste and additionally reduce their organic waste destined to landfills extending their life cycles. From a scenario created for a fictional municipality, it was established that the object of study was the organic waste and an environmental goal to only send up to 30 % of waste to landfill and composting the rest of the waste. The methodology adopted has as a starting point the "constructo" of a scenario in which a city comprised of five districts produces its urban solid waste made up of 50% organic material. In the proposed scenario, similar to what happens in practice, a fee for collection and treatment of organic material would be charged for two different situations. Two ways to accomplish this task were studied: one simply fulfilling the proposed/desired goal and another besides fulfilling the goal and at the same time benefiting from economies of scale. The result showed that the use of Pollution Credit Certificates Theory has a better cost-effectiveness for solid waste management because it allows reaching the environmental goal at a lower cost to society. From the results obtained, we inferred that the use of the Pollution Certificates Theory for the management of municipal solid waste benefits from economies of scale as it allows in the scenario determined, that districts sell their spaces at the landfill and parallel to this, to promote the practice of composting organic waste in the municipality.