Wednesday, May 16

After a late night at the jazz club last night, we had class this morning. After a lesson on thermodynamics, we headed out to check out an old landfill. The landfill was about 45 minutes outside of the city, and is no longer active. We passed by favelas on the way. The houses were tall and narrow, clustered on the hillside. The landfill was massive. Once we got there, we had to drive about 10 minutes to get to the facility.

Transmission lines on the way to the landfill

The favela as seen from the highway

The first facility we saw was a medical waste facility. After the landfill was completed, a facility to process hazardous medical waste was constructed there. This takes waste from clinics and hospitals that has been contaminated with biological material and sterilizes it so it can be disposed of in a regular landfill. We got to see the material being transferred from the holding bay to autoclaves, which use a combination of heat and pressure to kill all pathogens.

Medical waste before being treated

One of the facility operators presented to us about their waste collection scheme. A private company signed a 20-year contract to provide waste collection and management for the city. They are constructing new facilities, such as the one we toured and a new waste transfer facility. He said it was a much needed change for the city, as previously the services were provided by many different companies, with little oversight or long-term progress.

Biogas generation facility

Bonus: Trash mutt

We went to go see the biogas facility, but unfortunately the plant had already closed for the day. From the outside, we could see the biogas scrubbers, filters, and compression machines. The facility provides power for over 200,000 homes nearby. I was incredulous that the decomposition in a landfill could provide so much power, but I guess Brazilian homes have so much lower power requirements.

For dinner, I got two hot dogs at a food truck and walked around a bit. They put some crazy stuff on their hot dogs- mine came with corn and mashed potatoes.

Hot dog (not affiliated with trash mutt from above)