The impact of COVID 19 on waste management: Societal responses to waste during the pandemic

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, João Machado
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/24341
• topic: Waste management; Infectious waste; COVID-19; Separate waste collection; Reciclagem -- Recycling; Gestão de resíduos; Lixo infecioso; Recolha separada de resíduos

The COVID-19 pandemic has been having a strong impact throughout the world, changing the way we live our lives. This is due to the threat that the virus poses to human health, but also to the impact it has on waste management and consequently the environment. In this dissertation it was intended to study the way that the pandemic has been affecting waste management. With the elaboration of two interviews, it was intended to understand the role that the municipal governments of Lisbon (Portugal) and Salto (Brazil) had on waste management during the pandemic and if the management process has been adequate. It was also intended, with the elaboration of two questionnaires, to understand how the population of both these countries has been affected and which possible impacts can the citizens behavior have in this waste management process. The results showed that both these municipal governments and their respective countries are subject to factors like geographic limitations, population density and social diversity, which directly affect the process of waste management, however there are similarities in the approaches followed. It was also noted that the way to obtain positive results in this waste management process does not depend unilaterally on the intervention of the government nor the social behavior, but the cooperation between both parts. Lastly it was also noted that all the countries must invest in environmental education and conscientization, so the citizens can understand from early on, the impacts that their habits can have on the environment.