Municipal Solid Waste Knowledge Platform

The Waste Initiative partner and implementer, ISWA, helped the city to formulate a strategy for organic waste diversion with the aim of reaching the goals in the City’s MSW Master Plan 2014. In addition, the strategy includes technical guidance on the operation of organic waste treatment plants, such as composting, anaerobic digestion and MBT plants. The technical guidance was prepared by ISWA’s senior experts with the assistance of a local waste management expert to ensure that the existing legal framework was included.

The document is aimed at providing technical guidelines to local authorities, plant suppliers and plant managers in order to help them manage the organic waste fraction in a proper way both from a processing as well as from an environmental protection point of view. Information will be given on how to make proper choices on waste acceptance and treatment in such a way that it leads to an optimized transformation and the derivation of a product suitable for being utilized as an organic fertilizer in the case of organic waste from separate collection or a safe residue for final disposal with possible recovery of materials (in the case of residual waste). For each type of plant, indications will be given on possible layouts, mass balances and building and managing approaches aimed at minimizing environmental impacts on the surroundings of the installation and the health of workers.

ISWA, a partner of the Waste Initiative, organized a meeting with school representatives and city officials to find ways to enhance organic waste management in schools and the awareness of teachers and children. During this meeting, it was decided that the best way to meet the objective was to establish a feedback and communication platform via online social networks. The platform would facilitate dialogues among schools. The platform would also serve as a tool to collect information for a handbook on the management of organic waste, including the other fractions (dry and residual waste), for school education.

ISWA led the writing of the handbook in close collaboration with the local consultant managing the school communication platform. 

ISWA, a partner of the Waste Initiative, assisted the City of Sao Paulo in the planning phase and implementation phase of a small-scale composting plant, by evaluating the existing plan. This first composting plant will treat public garden and park green waste and organic waste from street markets. An evaluation and recommendation report was provided to the city.

With the overarching work plan for diversion of organic waste laid out in the strategy paper, ISWA designed a trial for separate collection of household organic waste from a selected area (maximum 5,000 inhabitants) in the Lapa District (City of Sao Paulo) and developed a roll-out/implementation plan.

ISWA, a Waste Initiative partner, developed a communication strategy with key stakeholders, which identifies the goals, target groups, communication measures for the different target groups, taken into consideration the evaluation of existing communication methods. 

ISWA, a Waste Initiative partner, organized two workshops for capacity building and knowledge transfer on organic waste management. The first training was a 1-day training workshop on communication techniques, instruments and case studies from around the world to city officials and waste service providers. In addition, The second training was a 2-day training workshop on organic waste treatment plant operations to city officials and service providers. 

Mr. Björn Appelqvist, Project Manager at the Sustainability Unit of the Technical and Environmental Administration, Mrs. Merete Kristoffersen, Head of Unit at the Sustainability Unit of the Technical and Environmental Administration and Mr. Jens Purup, Head of Unit, Waste Management Operations and Procurement Unit of the Technical and Environmental Administration from the City of Copenhagen conducted the first exchange visit of the city exchange programme between the City of Sao Paulo and the City of Copenhagen under the CCAC Municipal Solid Waste Initiative, between October 27th – 30th 2015.

The purpose of the visit was to establish contact between the City of Sao Paulo and the City of Copenhagen for the start-up and continuation of the CCAC City Exchange Programme and to provide the delegation from the City of Copenhagen with first-hand information and experiences related to the solid waste management system of the City of Sao Paulo. 

The visit involved meetings with senior city officials to learn about and discuss the framework, organisation and the future plans for the solid waste management system in the City of Sao Paulo. In addition, the visit included site visits to waste management treatment facilities and a landfill site as well as inspection of waste collection in operation. Finally, a cooperative operating a sorting facility for dry municipal waste from the City of Sao Paulo was also visited and a short meeting was held with the Environmental Agency of the State of Sao Paulo (CETESB).  

Observations and reflections from the exchange visit were used for identifying the following potential focus issues for the future work of the city exchange between the City of Sao Paulo and the City of Copenhagen:

• Waste management planning and implementation of the master plan, hereunder implementation plans and focus on efficiency of the collection schemes
• Waste management communication, information and focus on user behaviour as strategic and operational means for fulfilling the goals and purposes of the waste management system as well as to improve the efficiency and acceptance of the system
• Contract strategy and contract management, with focus on contract length versus capital investments and development needs as well as on incentive structures and controlling and performance indicators
• Financing of the waste management system, hereunder fee systems
• How the inclusion of the informal sector is affecting the efficiency and economy of the formal waste management system and how such an inclusion can be made in a way that is beneficial to all parts 

This Conceptual Project for the Construction of an Ecopark facility in the South Zone of the City of São Paulo is produced by the Brazilian Association of Public Cleansing and Waste Management Companies (ABRELPE), on behalf of the Municipal Solid Waste Initiative of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), for the Municipality of São Paulo, in Brazil.This Conceptual Project for the Construction of an Ecopark facility in the South Zone of the City of São Paulo is produced by the Brazilian Association of Public Cleansing and Waste Management Companies (ABRELPE), on behalf of the Municipal Solid Waste Initiative of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), for the Municipality of São Paulo, in Brazil.