City management versus solid waste management: the City Will the Zero Waste City be smart?

Abstract

This article proposes to draw a parallel between the projects for smart cities, in the light of the models proposed by the Inter American Development Bank – IDB, and the concept of zero waste cities, based on the global approach, which is characteristic of this movement. In Brazil, smart cities and sustainable cities were concepts commonly used to name the same thing: a technology target to be reached in order to improve the living conditions of communities. Today it is known that sustainability is still a distant goal for most cities, including those that have taken on the challenge of transitioning projects from traditional management models to the so-called “smart cities”. Many of these cities still carry the weight of large sanitary landfills or even dumps, which are perpetuated as proof of the real absence of environmental education policies and effective management of their waste. The zero waste movement foresees a radical choice, on a global and collaborative scale, from the actions of cities, to zero waste disposal. The union of these two concepts can enable a new way of managing waste in large, medium and small cities.