Tiago Balieiro Cetrulo

Solid waste management index for Brazilian Higher Education Institutions

This paper presents the Solid Waste Management Index (SWaMI) for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The main objectives are to present how SWaMI was developed, to apply the Index in three different universities in Brazil and one in United States, to statistically compare the results and to present an analysis of these HEIs under the SWaMI assessment dimensions perspective. The SwaMI fills a gap regarding a specific waste management tool for HEIs decision makers, considering the responsibility of educating and training future leaders and the need to insert the sustainable waste management discussion in its end activities. Criteria were selected through literature review and divided in dimensions, further weighted according to their significance in waste management. These weights were discussed and stipulated based on expert opinion using the Budget Allocation Process (BAP) weighting method. The individual indexes for each dimension were further combined into a composite index through the Linear Aggregation Method. Main findings shows that when comparisons were deployed between HEIs, no statistical significance was noticed when the means were compared between universities using ANOVA with Tukey test. Nevertheless, when comparing each dimension within each HEI, there was significant difference between the Policy and Management dimension and the other three dimensions of the evaluation criteria at USP. Researchers concluded that the SWaMI provides decision makers with graphic results concerning HEIs solid waste management situation, hence, it allows the creation of a baseline data on how the current system works, pointing out the dimensions that present the greatest weakness allowing to perform benchmarking between buildings, institutes, and even between HEIs.

Waste Management and Sustainability: Indicators under Ecological Economy Perspective

For indicators to assess a society’s sustainability it is necessary that the understanding of what type of sustainability one wishes to measure is clear. The hypothesis tested in the present study is that solid waste management indicators, used in city sustainability assessments, do not represent the concept of strong sustainability. To test the hypothesis, the article initially identifies the perspectives of solid waste management from the strong sustainability’s point of view, under Ecological Economy perspective. The hypothesis was tested in thirteen sustainability assessment tools, covering approximately 400 cities. Two, out of five perspectives identified, had indicators selected represent them. Only one system presented three perspectives, and eight presented two. To represent the theme’s complexity, all perspectives should be considered, so the hypothesis formulated was accepted.