Área de Ecología, Instituto del Conurbano, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento (UNGS), Argentina.
Área de Ecología, Instituto del Conurbano, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento (UNGS), Argentina; Centro de investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, Mexico.
Waste Manag. 2021 May 1;126:843-852. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2021.04.014. Epub 2021 Apr 23.
Waste Management in megacities is one of the most relevant issues around the world due to its environmental impacts and economic costs. In this work, we evaluate the application of the theoretical-methodological framework provided by Social Metabolism and Material Flow Analysis to analyze the Municipal Solid Waste Management in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (Argentina). The quantitative results evidence that 46% of the city's waste was disposed of in landfills outside its geographical limits, transferring environmental costs to the population on the outskirts of the city and other administrative jurisdictions. The city recycled the other 54% of the waste using different strategies like green centers for recyclable domestic waste (operated by 5500 registered Urban Recyclers/waste pickers recover), a Plant for treatment of pruning activities waste, a Plant for the treatment of construction and demolition waste, and a Mechanical-Biological Treatment Plant. Also in the city work, approximately 5000 informal waste pickers contributing to recycling waste. The approach shows the importance of the inclusion of waste pickers in the formal recycling system, and the failures of costly and inefficient large-scale technologies, as the Mechanical-Biological Treatment Plant. Also, the application of Social Metabolism and MFA allowed a characterization of the flows and processes that make up Municipal Solid Waste management in the area of study, despite the lack of systematized quantitative information. It facilitates a holistic visualization of waste management in the city for decision-makers.
大城市的废物管理是全球最相关的问题之一，因为它对环境的影响和经济成本。在这项工作中，我们评估了社会代谢和物质流分析提供的理论方法框架在分析布宜诺斯艾利斯自治市（阿根廷）城市固体废物管理中的应用。定量结果表明，该市 46%的废物被运到城市地理范围之外的垃圾填埋场进行处理，将环境成本转嫁给了城市郊区和其他行政管辖区的居民。该市通过不同的策略回收了另外 54%的废物，如绿色中心回收可回收的家庭废物（由 5500 名注册的城市回收者/拾荒者进行操作）、修剪活动废物处理厂、建筑和拆除废物处理厂和机械-生物处理厂。此外，在城市中，大约有 5000 名非正规的拾荒者参与了废物回收。该方法表明了将拾荒者纳入正式回收系统的重要性，以及昂贵和低效的大规模技术的失败，如机械-生物处理厂。此外，社会代谢和 MFA 的应用允许对研究区域的城市固体废物管理所包含的流动和过程进行特征描述，尽管缺乏系统的定量信息。它为决策者提供了对城市废物管理的整体可视化。
