Porto Alegre Studies Waste Alternatives

The municipality of Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state capital Porto Alegre is contacting neighboring municipalities to consider pooling domestic waste into a single deposit, according to the city's environment supervisor Manuel Zurita. Porto Alegre's 500 tonne per day (tpd) landfill will reach maximum capacity in two years, prompting the necessity to find alternative sites, Zurita told BNamericas.com yesterday at an environment management seminar of Mercosur cities being held in southern Chile. Two unused quarries in the area could be adapted for sanitary landfills, he said, adding that parallel to finding a new site the municipality is also examining ways of reducing waste volumes. In July the municipality started 10-15tpd test operations of a 100tpd capacity compost plant that dries and shreds organic materials separated from the 0.8kg/person daily quantity of domestic waste generated, Zurita explained. The plant produces compost that will be sold to small-scale farmers in areas close to the city.