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Characterization of Landfill Sites and the Potential for Landfill Gas Recovery from Landfill Sites in Brazil

Background

Brazil has a total of 4,974 municipalities. Of these 3,611 or 72.6 percent of the municipalities have less than 20,000 inhabitants and have a total population of approximately 23 million. Twenty one of the largest municipalities, with population greater than 600,000 inhabitants, have a combined population of approximately 34 million. The average production of municipal solid waste in Brazil is approximately 0.5 kg per capita per day. In large cities such as São Paulo , however, the average municipal waste production per capita per day can be as high as 0.85 kg.

A considerable amount of the municipal solid waste generated by the 4,974 municipalities is dumped illegally into scattered and unauthorized dump sites or water streams. The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) has estimated that approximately 76 percent of the total municipal waste generated in all of Brazil's municipalities is dumped in illegal dumping areas; 13 percent of the waste is delivered to controlled landfills; 10 percent is delivered to sanitary landfills; 0.9 percent is used for composting; and 0.1 percent is incinerated (primarily hospital waste).

The responsibility for the collection and disposal of all solid waste is at the municipality or city level. The municipalities are responsible for selecting landfill sites, arranging for the collection of all the waste (either themselves of through a private contractor), and disposal of the waste in environmentally sound ways. Also, the municipalities must ensure that the landfill sites are designed and operated in full compliance with the federal and local environmental laws and regulations with respect to the collection, monitoring, and disposal of all waste including hazardous and toxic waste, sewerage, and industrial waste. Many of the smaller municipalities, however, are unable to address the environmental problems caused by the municipal waste. This lack of effective municipal solid waste management is due to a number of factors including (i) a lack of specific waste management policy at the local level, (ii) budgetary constraints faced by many small and medium-sized municipalities, many of which do not have any collection fees or other revenue streams to justify the cost of solid waste management, (iii) a lack of availability of skilled and trained environmental and sanitary engineers and technicians, especially within small municipalities, (iv) a lack of appropriate monitoring, control, and treatment technologies, and (vi) absence of any programs for control, enforcement, and penalties for illegal dumping. The chemical composition of the municipal waste in the 21 largest municipalities is very similar. The analysis of the waste collected in São Paulo , the largest city in Brazil , producing approximately 9,000 tons of municipal waste per day, shows that the waste is approximately 60 percent organic in content, starting in 1993.

In most of the major cities the process for the collection and management of the municipal solid waste is organized in one of the following ways: (i) the landfill is owned and operated by the municipality, (ii) the landfill is owned by the municipality but is operated by a private entity under contract with the municipality, or (iii) the landfill is owned and operated by the private sector. The most common pattern in Brazil appears to be the ownership of the landfill by the municipality and operation by a private contractor. There are only two landfill sites in Brazil that are wholly owned and operated by the private sector.

CORE's Project Activities

Recognizing (i) the urgent need for mitigating many of the environmental, health, and safety effects of landfill gas (LFG), (ii) the potential for the use of LFG as a marketable resource, producing revenues for the municipalities and states, (iii) the need for more skilled technicians, engineers, and managers to manage the landfill sites, and (iv) the availability of technology from the U.S. for the recovery and utilization of methane from LFG, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Brasília requested a joint team of Bechtel and CORE International, Inc. (CORE) to visit key landfill sites throughout Brazil which offer the greatest promise for (i) accruing environmental health and safety benefits and (ii) the commercial scale recovery and utilization of LFG. The team visited Brazil and made site visits to 13 key landfill sites throughout Brazil . These sites included the following:

• Joinville Landfill, Joinville, Santa Catarina
• Joquei Landfill, Brasília, Distrito Federal
• Lara Landfill, Mauá, São Paulo
• Santa Barbara Landfill, Campinas , São Paulo
• Sao Joao Landfill, São Paulo , São Paulo
• Zona Norte Landfill, Porto Alegre , Rio Grande do Sul

The total population of all the states visited by the team is approximately 92 million persons, or 58% of Brazil 's population. The total population of cities where the selected sites were located is approximately 33.2 million persons. The total municipal solid waste produced in the country is estimated at 241,614 metric tons per day. The total municipal solid waste produced in the twelve cities covered by the thirteen selected sites is estimated at 142,697 metric tons per day which is approximately 59% of the total municipal waste in the country.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Landfill Air Emission Estimation Model (DOS Model, Version 2.0) was used to estimate landfill gas generation potential at each of the 13 Brazilian landfill facilities. The team estimated the total methane potential to be in the range of 300 - 600 million cubic meters in 1996 depending upon a number of factors. The team also estimated that over a 20-year period (1997-2016), the total amount of methane that could be generated was in the range of 9-15 billion cubic meters or an average of 485 million cubic meters per year.

Estimates of electrical power generation potential for each site were also developed. The cumulative power generating potential for the 13 sites was estimated to be in the range of 60-92 MW per year over a 10-year period. The cumulative potential for power generation in the optimistic case for the 13 landfill sites ranged from a low estimate of 68.8 MW in the year 2017 to a high estimate of 144.2 MW in the year 2007, the peaking year.

The team selected five best prospect projects and discussed potential financing arrangements with a number of financial institutions in Brazil . Also, institutional arrangements were discussed for the implementation of these projects. The total potential investment required for these best prospect projects was estimated to be in the range of $50-60 million.

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Major Accomplishments

This project had major economic and social significance to the Brazilian economy. The situation with wide spread illegal disposal of waste had reached an alarming proportion and apart from the esthetic impacts, considerable adverse health effects were being observed including the spread of communicable diseases. In addition to adverse land impacts, water streams were seriously affected also causing adverse health impacts. The biggest achievement of this project was to develop a practical institutional and business model for the management of the waste at the key landfill sites in Brazil . The potential recovery of methane and on-site generation of electric power provided a revenue stream, which generated the interest of the financial community to begin looking at these projects as potentially viable and even profitable. Banks, such as Credibanco, Unibanco, and others, started developing these projects on major cities, particularly in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia . The most direct benefits to the society included the prospects for a cleaner environment, reduced air pollution, reduced water pollution, and more equitable land use. In addition, the potential for reducing adverse health impacts in incidences of communicable diseases also provided for much needed social benefits.

The indirect economic benefits included the creation of private industry for composting, waste-to-energy production, recyclables separation, private concessions for the operation of the landfills, etc., all of which were expected to create new employment in the private sector, greater economic activity in and around the landfill sites, and a more positive income distribution.

Also, the potential involvement of the private sector increased the prospects for the utilization of new cleaner technologies for leachate treatment, resource recovery, composting, and waste-to-energy generation.

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