Percepção da população rural sobre os resíduos sólidos domésticos: estudo em distritos do município de Toledo - Pr

Abstract

The thematic of domiciliary solid waste management is a crescent concern of cities all over the country, and it has been studied with greater interest in the last decades. Nevertheless, the focus is usually on urban areas, whereas the needs of rural areas are understudied. It is of great importance to seek understanding on how the residents of rural areas think and act on the generation and management of solid waste on their residencies and communities, in order to improve the existing solid waste collection programs, or establish new ones in a well-informed manner. This research aims to evaluate the perception of population on selective collection, and to know the habits of consumption and management of domiciliary solid waste of residents of four districts in the west region of Parana State, Brazil. The qualitative research, of exploratory and descriptive character, occurred in the districts of Novo Sarandi, Vila Nova, Concórdia e Dez de Maio, belonging to the Municipality of Toledo-PR, Brazil. The collection of data was through structured questionnaires with 24 objective questions, concerning the characterization of residents, their habits regarding selective collection, their perceptions about collection and their conceptions about the residues produced. The data obtained were tabled according to scoring criteria, and processed to graphics for better visualization and discussion, besides the redundancy analysis (RDA). The results showed that the factors instruction level, age and number of residents are important in the recognition and separation of solid waste, indicating habits favorable to the selective collection. Besides this, the perception of respondents about the necessities for a better adhesion to the selective collect program include more collecting points, higher frequency of collection and creation of deposits in the districts, since the collecting points are very distant. Based on the considerations obtained from the respondents, measures are suggested, that might show beneficial in the improvement of solid waste management in these locations, and that might contribute to discussions regarding this theme.