Public Events, Private Gains: The Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management Amidst the Rebirth of Street Carnival in São Paulo

Abstract

As well as exceptionality, fugacity and intangibility, urban mega-events achieve strong relevance in contemporary societies. Furthermore, such events usually emerge as a strategy for the promotion of cities and their economic development, and even become objects of public policies. However, in the Brazilian scenario, from the perspective of sustainability, mega-events may also generate large quantity of solid waste. These happenings may compromise the events’ environmental quality and involve the precarious work of a large number of waste pickers, which constitutes   a perverse mechanism of exploitation. Thus, the search of sustainable models of waste management becomes fundamental, in order to understand the dynamics and organization of these events, which must consider not only the environmental aspects, but also the social and economic ones. With this in mind, this work discusses the rebirth of Street Carnival in the city of São Paulo, recently disciplined by Decree 56.690/2015, its conversion into a large waste generator, and the management gaps of the urban cleaning service and handle of the party’s solid waste., The study considered the National Policy of Solid Waste as a reference, and adopted bibliographic review, documentary research, participant observation and photographic documentation as research tools. The results suggest the need for new ways of organizing the management of the mega-events’ solid waste, which may be solved through the implementation and strengthening of the legal framework already established. These strategies may involve actions of environmental education, shared responsibility and social inclusion of waste pickers.