Regional Distance Routes Estimation for Municipal Solid Waste Disposal, Case Study São Paulo State, Brazil

The urban population increase in the world, the economic expansion, and the rise in living standards associated with society’s habits and lifestyles accelerated the municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in undeveloped countries, such as in Brazil, in which the generation increased by 25% from 2012 to 2017. In the same period, the São Paulo state, the richest Brazilian state, increased its municipal solid waste generation by 51%. All this MSW needed to be collected and transported, and this process has a high economic and environmental cost. Therefore, this study aims to identify, using spatial analysis, the routes used by MSW trucks to estimate the distances traveled to dispose of the MSW on a regional scale considering all municipalities in the São Paulo state. The findings showed that the landfill numbers decrease, mainly individual ones, which receive MSW only from the city where it is located. Otherwise, the consortium landfills number is increasing, as well as the number of municipalities that share the same disposal site. Consequently, the distances to transport MSW from urban areas to final disposal sites increased by about 55% from 2012 to 2017, reaching 613 million kilometers during this period. This total distance is sufficient to make more than 12,806 laps on Earth and contribute to high fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emission.