The Solid Waste Management Policy of the City of Vitória, Espírito Santo-Brazil: An Analysis from the Perspective of Political Ecology and Citizen Participation

It discusses the regulations promoted by the "National Solid Waste Policy" according to its reflections on the local environmental role of Brazilian´s cities. In this context, this article proposes a critique of the environmental approach presented in Law nr. 10.305 published in 2010 under the prism of Political Ecology, from the analysis of the institutional tools of the policy in relation to the question of sustainability in an ecocentric perspective, from the environmental paradigm put forward by the Federal Constitution which declares as a fundamental right the Environment Ecologically Balanced for all generations. Thus, based on an exploratory research of documentary nature, it discusses: the reduction of solid waste production; environmental education focusing on public measures to control this unbridled and growing production; the creation of reverse logistics rules imposed on manufacturers and suppliers; as well as the implementation of eco-efficient measures for the shared management of irregular waste, under the prism of citizen participation. Thus, it is verified that after more than 07 years of the effective publication of the National Solid Waste Policy, Brazil shows little evolution in relation to the policy that it created, leading the Public Administration to a managerial collapse averse to environmental management efficient. In the case of the City of Vitória, in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, this scenario is materialized in the establishment of a Metropolitan Plan for Solid Waste Management and a Municipal Plan for Selective Collection, which results in the appropriate treatment in terms of recycling only 180 tons of waste per month. In this context, considering the universe of 11,000 tons of municipal solid waste produced in the city of Vitória, it is clear the unsustainability of the current practice of this policy and the need to expand its management tools in an administrative and participatory scale.