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. 2021 Feb 10;755(Pt 1):142471.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142471. Epub 2020 Sep 30.

COVID-19 pandemic: Solid waste and environmental impacts in Brazil

Rodrigo Custodio Urban  1 , Liane Yuri Kondo Nakada  2
Affiliations

COVID-19 pandemic: Solid waste and environmental impacts in Brazil

Rodrigo Custodio Urban et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

The World Health Organization has recently declared South America the new epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Brazil has become one of the most affected countries. Besides public health and economic impacts, social isolation has also caused indirect environmental effects. The aim of this study was to assess environmental impacts caused by shifts on solid waste production and management due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We have analyzed data from 30 cities, representing a population of more than 53.8 million people (25.4% of the Brazilian population). Unexpectedly, solid waste production in the main cities in Brazil has decreased during the social isolation period, possibly because of reduced activity in commercial areas. The latest data on solid waste in Brazil have revealed that more than 35% of medical waste has not been treated properly. Furthermore, improper disposal of facemasks has been reported in several cities and may increase the risk for COVID-19 spread. The suspension of recycling programs has hindered natural resources from being saved, with emphasis on 24,076 MWh of electric power and 185,929 m3 of potable water - respectively enough to supply 152,475 households and 40,010 people, over a month. Furthermore, total sale price for recyclable materials during the suspension of recycling programs reaches more than 781 thousand dollars, being these materials disposed in landfills - demanding an extra volume of 19,000 m3 - reducing landfill lifespan, and hence causing a double loss: economic and environmental.

Keywords: Facemasks; Latin America; Medical waste; Natural resources; Recycling; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Estimates of daily disposable facemasks in state capital cities and in cities with more than 1 million people in Brazil, during the COVID-19 pandemic considering each person uses 2 units per day, with acceptance by 80% of total population.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Variations over the last decade (2010−2020) in domiciliary solid waste collection, domiciliary recyclable collection, voluntary deposit in containers for recyclables (started on 2016) and solid waste collection on streets and squares in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Data source: São Paulo (2020a).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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