By: Leonardo Neri

With the intention of protecting the environment and public health, the National Solid Waste Policy – PNRS (law no. 12,305/2010, regulated by Decree 7,404/2010) was established in 2010. It is the main source of principles, instruments, guidelines and goals, assisting the Public Authorities in inspection and directing companies to minimize negative impacts, by legislating on integrated management and management of solid waste.

However, in addition to establishing several obligations for public and private agents, the law defines as an instrument of the Policy, the so-called “shared responsibility” which, according to item XVII of article 3, is a set of individualized and linked attributions of manufacturers, importers, distributors and traders, consumers and holders of public urban cleaning and solid waste management services, to minimize the volume of solid waste and rejects generated, as well as to reduce the impacts caused to human health and environmental quality resulting from the life cycle of products.

According to the law, manufacturers, importers, distributors and traders, individually and in a chained manner, have shared responsibility for the product's life cycle, as do the holders of public urban cleaning and solid waste management services. This measure adopted by the PNRS aims to use waste and direct it to its production chain or to other production chains, reduce the generation of solid waste, waste of materials, pollution and environmental damage to encourage the use of inputs that are less aggressive to the environment and more sustainable, among others, as provided for in the items provided for in the sole paragraph of article 30 of the PNRS.

Thus, articles 30 to 36 of the Policy indicate the obligations of members who, in some way, participated in the product life cycle, from investment in product development to manufacturing and placing on the market, dissemination of information regarding ways to avoid, recycle or reuse and eliminate solid waste, as well as the collection of products and waste remaining after use, as well as their subsequent environmentally appropriate final disposal, in the case of products subject to a reverse logistics system.

Therefore, in order to implement this shared responsibility, the law uses the reverse logistics instrument, an instrument of economic and social development characterized by the set of actions, procedures and means designed to enable the collection and return of solid waste to the business sector, for reuse, in its cycle or in other production cycles, or another environmentally appropriate final destination.

Reverse logistics should be understood as a set of plans and actions for implementing control over the collection and return of waste. In other words, manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers are required by law to structure and implement a reverse logistics system, by returning products after use by the consumer, independently of the public urban cleaning and solid waste management service. This measure is mandatory for products such as tires, batteries, packaging containing pesticides and fluorescent lamps.

Through reverse logistics, the consumer, when returning the waste, guarantees that the product will have an environmentally appropriate final destination, whether through reuse, recycling, composting, recovery and/or energy use, as well as final disposal, observing specific operational standards in order to avoid damage or risks to public health and safety and to minimize adverse environmental impacts;

With the implementation of reverse logistics by states and municipalities, the negative effects caused by discarded waste can be mitigated, taking a step towards sustainable development by enabling the reuse and reduction in the consumption of raw materials.