Effectiveness of solid waste policies in developing countries: A case study in Brazil

Waste management policy effectiveness evaluation is important to understand whether the results achieved correspond to the policy goals, as well as to identify obstacles and outline strategies for its implementation. Although this type of study has been done in developed countries, little research on has been done on this topic in developing countries, mainly due to lack of data. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of the Brazilian solid waste policy (PNRS). A case study methodology has been applied to Brazil in which a solid waste policy was implanted and a database is available. An empirical statistical analysis over panel data was carried out to evaluate whether the municipal waste management key performance indicators improved or not. The findings suggest that the PNRS has not accomplished the desired changes in municipal waste management, particularly no significant upgrading was observed in the indicators studied: municipal waste generation, frequency of waste collection, rate of recyclable waste recovered, and proportion of sanitary landfills. Furthermore, the paper concludes with lessons learnt and supports the identification of constraints and strategies that can be extrapolated to other developing countries.