Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Global Enterprise and Sustainable Development (Ming Xu)/Articles/Sandbox Environ Issues in Brazil

Waste Management Brazil’s population has a stable growth rate, which is at 1% in 2009, unlike China or India, which experiencing a rapid urban growth. With steady growth rate, Brazil's waste management challenges focus on financing and government funding. Even though adequate funding is lacking, lawmakers and municipal authorities are taking steps to improve their cities waste management systems. Currently, there is not an all-in composing all that manages the countries waste materials. While there are collection services, they tend to focus in the south and southeast of Brazil. However, Brazil does regulate dangerous waste materials such as oil, tires and pesticides, according to the EIATrack. http://www.eiatrack.org/s/118?kw=. In 2014 Brazil will host the FIFA World Cup followed by the Summer Olympic Games in 2016. As a result a huge amount of investment is being spent, yet waste management improvements still lack funds. In order to address the lack of federal involvement the public and private sectors, as well as the informal and formal markets are developing potential solutions to these major problems. Also, international organizations are teaming up with local city officials. Since 2008, United Nations Environmetn Programme has been working with Brazil to create a sustainable waste management system that promotes environmental preservation and conservation, along with the protection of public health. This partnership is between United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and city officials who form the Green and Healthy Environments Project in Sao Paulo. With community involvement, the project is able to promote polices that establish environmental change. According the UNEP report., the project has already gathered research on sanitation in Brazil. With the various partnerships and collaborations, certain cities are making strides in efficiently managing their waste, but a more comprehensive and inclusion decision must be made for the entire country to create a more sustainable future.

Collection services: Currently, collection services are more prominent in the south and southeast regions of Brazil. Various forms of waste methods are used to separate the waste materials, such as paper, metal and glass. According the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management, solid waste in Brazil is mostly Organic Matter 65%, Paper 25%, Meta 4%, Glass 3%, Plastic 3%. Within 405 municipalities, 7% of the country’s total municipalities, separation of these materials is conducted through door-to-door service 50%, collection points 26%, and informal street waste pickers 43%. A major victory for waste collection was between 2006 and 2008, with a one million person increase, which amounts to a total of 14% of the Brazilian population that receives separated waste collection. [2008 Ciclosoft Survery].

Landfills While collection of waste is slightly improving, the ultimate disposal of that waste is commonly, 50%, dumped in inadequate landfills. While in European nations, landfills are often the last option when disposing of waste and prefer waste to energy systems; Brazil favors landfills and belief that they are efficient modes of disposal. The preference for landfills has hindered the creation of alternative methods of waste disposal. Often, This hesitation is in response to the initial costs of adopting new solutions. For example, incinerators are expensive to purchase, operate and maintain, eliminating them as an option for most of the cities in Brazil. According to the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Manual, landfill usage will begin to fall do to new regulation and laws. As the risks and environmental hazards of open air landfills are understood by municipality administrators in Brazil, more dumps are being closed or sanitary landfills. However, only these policy changes will happen with the appropriate financing.

Endangered Species: Brazil is home to over 6% of the world's endangered species (). According to a species assessment conducted by the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species, 97 species have been identified in Brazil with vulnerable, lower risk/near threatened, endangered, or critically endangered standing (). In 2009, 769 endangered species have been identified, making Brazil the eighth country with the largest number of endangered species, yielding only to Ecuador, the United States, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, China, and Australia (). Much of this increase in Brazil as well as the countries it precedes is caused by rapid deforestation and industrialization. This has been noted by Carlos Minc, Brazil's Environment Minister, who further states that as protected areas are being populated by humans, these preservation areas are lacking the essential protection they need (). The changing environmental factors are largely responsible for the increase in the number of endangered species. Taking into account the large effects deforestation and industrialization has had, it becomes clear that by increasing regulation and policy, these detrimental effects can backtrack.