Reverse logistics and solid waste: challenges for the National Waste Policy (PNRS) in Brazil

This chapter promotes a selection of works collected that seek to analyze the need and the evolution of reverse logistics into the context of the National Policy on Solid Waste in Brazil. Nineteen years of intensive discussion have been held until the legal framework for the implementation of Agenda 21 of 1992 on the environmentally sound management of solid waste could be announced. The principle of shared responsibility for the product lifecycle, which reaches manufacturers, importers, distributors and traders, consumers, and holders of public solid waste management services, is the central theme of the law and undoubtedly innovates on the issue, placing Brazil alongside countries such as those of the European Union and Japan. However, a serious problem that distances them is to achieve large population densities with the benefit of municipalization of the process of control of urban waste. The rate of effective management of solid wastes is relatively low at the municipal level compared to the countries mentioned.