Path toward Sustainability in Wastewater Management in Brazil.

Developing countries have not carried out the adequate management of wastewater and are a long way off meeting the sustainability goal of universal access to safely managed sanitation services by 2030. This article discusses sustainability in wastewater management and conducts a narrative literature review to analyze four stages on the path toward sustainability: (1) the prevention of or reduction in pollution at the source; (2) wastewater collection and treatment; (3) using wastewater as an alternative source of water; and (4) the recovery of useful by-products. It also provides an overview of wastewater management in Brazil and shows the advantages of using wastewater to produce biofuel in a country in which 48.

Environmental risk caused by drug waste in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the SARS-Cov19 pandemic.

The relationship between the distribution of medicines used in the Pandemic by SARS-COV-19 in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro and the estimated level of environmental risk caused by their residues was evaluated. The amount of medicines distributed by primary health care (PHC) units between 2019 and 2021 were collected. The risk quotient (RQ) corresponded to the ratio between the estimated predictive environmental concentration (PECest) obtained by the consumption and excretion of each drug and its non-effective predictive concentration (PNEC).

Social effectiveness and private sanitation concessions: the CEDAE auction in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Changes in the regulatory and legal framework for Brazil's water and sanitation sector (Law 14,026, July 15, 2020) require competitive bidding for service contracts, even in cases where the provision of services was previously delegated to state-owned utilities under program contracts. The aim of this study was to identify the actors who benefited from these changes to the legislation and assess the social effectiveness of the privatization of water supply and sewerage services in the state of Rio de Janeiro by investigating the auction of services provided by the public utility CEDAE in four blocks comprising 35 municipalities in April 2021. We conducted an exploratory analysis of secondary data and used the systemic integration method to identify the main actors involved in the concession process and the role they played.

Methodology for a Comprehensive Health Impact Assessment in Water Supply and Sanitation Programmes for Brazil.

Based on the broader concept of health proposed by the Pan-American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/ WHO), 2018, and the absence in the literature of indices that translate the causal relationship between sanitation and health, a methodology for assessing the health impact of a water and sanitation programmes, known as a Health Impact Assessment (HIA), was developed, specifically in the Brazilian context, and focused on a school in the northeast of the country. Through exploratory and descriptive evidence, and using documentary research as a method, a retrospective survey was carried out from 2000 to 2022 using documents proposing evaluation methodologies. A single document was found to fit the research objective, which was used to develop the proposed HIA methodology.

The Potential to Address Disease Vectors in Favelas in Brazil Using Sustainable Drainage Systems: Zika, Drainage and Greywater Management.

Residents of informal settlements, the world over, suffer consequences due to the lack of drainage and greywater management, impacting human and environmental health. In Brazil, the presence of the mosquito in urban areas promotes infections of the Zika virus as well as companion viruses, such as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. By using observation and interviews with the community, this paper shows how a simple sustainable drainage system approach could prevent the accumulation of on-street standing water, and thus reduce opportunities for the mosquito to breed and reduce infection rates.

[Paths to convergence of interests in depollution of the Guandu River in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil].

In January 2020, the population of Greater Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, suffered deterioration in the quality of the public water supply, caused by the presence of geosmin, which compromised the water treatment process at the Guandu Water Treatment Plant, the only water source in the region. The phenomenon results from lack of investment in sewage infrastructure in the Guandu River Basin, which previously affected only the predominantly low-income population. The article aims to identify different social actors' roles and actions, using the Systemic Integration methodology, to allow convergence of their interests for prioritizing and achieving depollution of the Guandu River.

[Review of national and international legal and regulatory mechanisms on the management of drugs and the residues thereof].

This paper presents a descriptive review of laws and regulations on the management of drugs and the residues thereof adopted by countries in Europe, the Americas and Australia. This review integrates relevant points of official documents of regulatory agencies in these countries, as well as important scientific works. All countries surveyed carry out drug management concomitant with the management of the residues thereof, ranging from awareness programs on the rational use and the risks of drugs through to the collection and safe disposal of such residues.

The response of nitrous oxide emissions to different operating conditions in activated sludge wastewater treatment plants in Southeastern Brazil.

The continuous measurements of NO emissions from the aeration tanks of three activated sludge wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) operated with biological nitrogen removal (BNR) and non-BNR were performed during the different operating conditions of several parameters, such as aeration, dissolved oxygen (DO) profiling and organic shock loading (with landfill leachate). The nitrification process is the main driving force behind NO emission peaks. There are indications that the variation of the air flow rate influenced NO emissions; high NO emissions denote over-aeration conditions or incomplete nitrification, with accumulation of NO concentrations.

Environmental Education as a social mobilization strategy to face water scarcity.

Article 225 of the Brazilian Constitution establishes that all citizens have the right to an ecologically balanced environment, as a common good that is essential for a healthy life, and that the government and society have the duty to protect and preserve the environment for present and future generations. This article outlines a methodology for promoting social mobilization to address water scarcity developed under the National Environmental Education and Social Mobilization for Sanitation Program (PEAMSS, acronym in Portuguese). The main aim of this article is to show the importance of education as a driving force for empowerment for water resources management.

Factors controlling nitrous oxide emissions from a full-scale activated sludge system in the tropics.

Despite interest in characterizing nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in several parts of the globe, there are few studies in tropical zones. This study focus on the contribution of the scientific knowledge of anthropogenic nitrogen greenhouse gas emissions to climate change in tropical countries, investigating factors controlling N2O emissions in a non-biological nitrogen removal municipal WWTP. In terms of operational parameters, dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations displayed a biphasic impact on N2O production and emission, with the highest emission at DO of 2.

[Guidelines for an Expired Medication Collection Program in Brazil].

The scope of this paper is to outline and discuss fundamental guidelines for an expired medication collection program for Brazil and to provide evidence supporting campaigns to raise the population's awareness for the program's success. It is a document-based descriptive review that analyzes official, technical and regulatory documents from Portugal, Canada and Colombia, where there are expired medication collection programs in different stages of implementation. Some of them are already fully implemented, while others are in the preliminary stages, but all of them are achieving good results.

[Climate variables, living conditions and the health of the population: leptospirosis in the city of Rio de Janeiro from 1996 to 2009].

Extreme climate events have major repercussions on the health of the population, especially when they cause disease or even result in victims due to accidents. The population of Rio de Janeiro is vulnerable to climate variations, mainly due to the socio-economic factors, as the city has a topography and climate that enhance this vulnerability. This article discusses the evolution of leptospirosis in the thirty-two administrative regions of the city of Rio de Janeiro from 1996 through 2009, testing the hypothesis that climate variations lead to an increase in the number of cases of the disease.

[How to do the correct discard of medicine residues?].

The final destination of medicine residues is a relevant subject to the public health due to the pharmacological properties of each medicine, that in future will become a residue and will need to be treated. In Brazil, the correct discard of the solid medicine residues is regulated by the Ministry of Health and also by the Ministry of Environment, that aim to provide the producers of medicine residues with instruments that enable them to correctly discard those residues. However, there are some obstacles that can only be overcome through the integration of all agents involved in this process.

[The federal politics of basic sanitation and the initiatives of participation, mobilization, social control, health and environmental education].

The purpose of this article is to accomplish a critical analysis of two governmental important programs in health and environmental education - Health Education and Social Mobilization Program (PESMS) and Environmental Education and Sanitation Social Mobilization Program (PEAMSS), aiming at stimulate participative educational actions and social mobilization in sanitation projects. The methodology was based on reading and analysis of documents and observation in Workshops, Meetings, Seminars, Conventions, Congresses and Interviews. The authors describe the process of Program creation - PESMS and PEAMSS.

Dengue, related to rubble and building construction in Brazil.

The fast-growing formation of solid waste, resulting from demographic density, presents itself as one of the most pressing problems to be addressed by governments of large cities all over the world. In Rio de Janeiro, 60% of solid waste stems from the construction industry. Although envisaged by under current municipal legislation, no application of policy regarding systematic recycling of this kind of waste exists in fact.

[Management of residues deriving from the manufacture and distribution of Diazepam in the city of São Mateus, ES].

This work aimed to study the management of residues of a controlled prescription drug. Diazepam was the drug chosen for this study for its therapeutic importance and wide use, and for being a prescription drug controlled by the National Health Surveillance Agency--ANVISA. The generation of residues of Diazepam from manufacture to distribution as well as the management and final destination of these residues was observed.

[Health and environmental indicator systems in health institutions].

This article presents a discussion on conceptual and methodological aspects involved in the establishment of a system of indicators for Health and Environment, with the purpose of integrating the management of research, education and health services institutes while also taking Biosafety into account. The initial task was the study of international indicator models, paying special attention to the World Health Organization model, more apropriate to this article, which was used in the process of collection, organization and synthesis of data. This work aims to create methodological instruments for the monitoring and evaluation of these procedures and support the decision making process.

[Healthy housing and healthy environments as a strategy for health promotion].

In this article, Healthy Housing is discussed as a potential field of knowledge and practices to be applied in the Health Promotion strategy and as an instrument in a larger discussion of problems in health and living standards. The development and consolidation of Health Promotion is presented focusing the discussion on two fields of action: healthy public policies and the establishment of healthy environments. The concepts of habitability and ambience are presented as a path conducive to reflection and the development of closer ties between Health Promotion and Healthy Housing.

[Environmental management in the public sector: a question of social and economic relevancy].

Discussing the need to implement an environmental management system in civil service entities, this paper offers a brief description of some management practices used by companies in various sectors that are endeavoring to establish the best possible relationships between business activities, environmental issues and human needs, today and in the future. Some economic arguments are presented, including the benefits obtained by private sector companies adopting eco-efficiency criteria that are in themselves sufficient to justify the implementation of an effective environmental management policy in government institutions. The relevance is also stressed of drawing up the Civil Service Environment Agenda (A3P), striving to introduce a new cultural approach that will mobilize civil servants in order to optimize resources, combating waste and encouraging better work environments.

Theory and practice in the context of health promotion program evaluation.

Evaluation of health promotion (HP) actions is a major challenge, generating inquiries and reflections that can contribute on the effectiveness of the actions themselves. With the aim on fostering exchange on monitoring and evaluation experiences related to the implementation of healthy settings, the 1 st Brazilian Seminar on Health Promotion Effectiveness was launched in 2005. The program included round table and workshops known as Working Groups (WG) in Brazil.

Analyzing the outcomes of health promotion practices.

This article focuses on health promotion (HP) outcomes, illustrated through evaluation of case studies and identification of strategies which have contributed to their success and sustainability. Evaluation research and practice in three distinct sceneries are discussed: (i) institutional and governmental agencies; (ii) communities in the "Manguinhos Complex" and Nova Iguaqu Municipality, and (iii) building of potentially healthy municipality networks. The effectiveness of a social program in a health promotion perspective was based in the "School for Parents" program, undertaken by the First Court of Childhood and Youth of Rio de Janeiro, between 2001 and 2004.