Lixo e esgoto: A cidade também é lavoura de gás

Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura

doi:10.5281/zenodo.23539847

No. 049 Energy · biomass From field to biomethane 5/5

Waste and sewage

The city is a gas crop too

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Map of São Paulo state with municipalities coloured by the biomethane that waste, sewage and prunings could give per day, in six teal classes, from the lightest (up to 37 m³) to the darkest (1,100 to 143,796 m³). Dark tones dominate Greater São Paulo and the Campinas–Sorocaba axis and also appear in the mid-sized towns of the interior; the Ribeira valley and the upper Paraíba valley are grey, with zero. Over the map, 873 sewage treatment plants: small dots in blue (ponds), dark grey (activated sludge) and light grey (other processes), and 87 larger clay-coloured dots with anaerobic reactors, densest between Campinas, Piracicaba and São Paulo. A callout points to São Paulo: 144,000 m³ a day, 23% of the state’s urban biomethane. — Fig. 049 São Paulo state (SP) EPSG:4674 Source: CP2B (Unicamp), ANA, IBGE

The organic waste, sewage sludge and prunings of São Paulo’s towns and cities could give 621,000 m³ of biomethane a day under the CP2B method: 434,000 from waste, 121,000 from sludge and 66,000 from prunings. That is little next to the countryside, under 4% of the state total, but it lies where almost everyone lives. The city of São Paulo accounts for 23% and its region for 39%. Half the methane the waste could generate is already captured at landfills, and the method deducts that share. The map also shows the 873 sewage treatment plants registered by ANA, serving 608 municipalities. Most treat sewage in ponds (552); 87 use anaerobic reactors, which produce biogas during treatment. Fifth plate of the collection “From field to biomethane”.

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At a glance

Layers

etes point 873 sewage treatment plants: name, status, process, family, BOD removal and municipalities served
municipios polygon 645 municipalities: biomethane from waste, sludge and prunings (m³/day) and waste methane already used at landfills
regioes_intermediarias polygon 11 intermediate geographic regions
limite_estadual polygon State boundary

Metadata

Sources: CP2B (Unicamp) — biogas and biomethane potential by municipality, method v5.1 (2026)
ANA — Sewage treatment plants (2019 database) (2019)
IBGE — Municipal Mesh 2025 (2025)
Extent: São Paulo state (SP)
CRS / Projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674)
EPSG:4674
Software: Python · GeoPandas · GDAL · QGIS · Node.js · d3-geo
Method: Biomethane potential of organic waste, sewage sludge and urban prunings at the accessible level of the CP2B method, by municipality, in six quantile classes; ANA sewage treatment plants, one per code, coloured by process family.
Version: v1.0.0
Licence: CC BY 4.0
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23539847

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The map without a frame, with legend, scale, reference system and credit written on it: ready for papers, lectures and slides. In two versions: with the basemap (neighbours and sea) or only the mapped area, on white.

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How to cite

Cerejo, L. N. (2026). Lixo e esgoto: a cidade também é lavoura de gás [Waste and sewage: The city is a gas crop too] (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23539847

@dataset{cerejo2026_lixo_e_esgoto_sp,
  author    = {Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura},
  title     = {Lixo e esgoto: A cidade também é lavoura de gás},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  version   = {1.0.0},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23539847},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23539847},
  language  = {portuguese},
  note      = {English title: Waste and sewage: The city is a gas crop too. Licence CC BY 4.0}
}

How to read this plate area, projection, scale, legend and source · 3 terms

1 Area: São Paulo state (SP) The area the plate covers. Outside it, neighbours and sea are drawn in grey, just for orientation.
2 Coordinates and projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674) The layers are in SIRGAS 2000; the drawing’s projection is written in the colophon at the foot of the panel.
3 Scale: Graphic scale bar in the panel The scale bar is true on the central meridian; away from it, measured distances vary a little.
4 Legend and layers: 4 layers in the GeoPackage · point, polygon Read the legend before the map: it tells you whether a colour is a rate or a class, and whether a circle is a total.
5 Sources: CP2B (Unicamp) (2026); ANA (2019); IBGE (2025) Every figure comes from a public source, with its year. The data sheet gives each one’s address.

Terms on this plate

Biogas: The gas from the airless breakdown (anaerobic digestion) of organic waste: manure, vinasse, sewage sludge, rubbish. It is 50% to 70% methane; the rest is mostly CO₂.
Biomethane: Biogas upgraded, with most of the CO₂ removed, to ANP’s specification, at which point it replaces natural gas in the pipeline, in industry and in the lorry’s tank.
Landfill and open dump: A sanitary landfill is an engineered site: sealed ground, leachate and gas drainage. An open dump is tipping in the open air, banned by Brazil’s National Solid Waste Policy. Landfill gas is biogas.

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Layers, table and figures, under CC BY 4.0. Cite with the DOI.

Full record and citation

Method notes · No. 049

Waste, sewage and prunings in São Paulo: the biomethane of the cities

Português · English

Plate No. 049, the fifth of six in the collection From field to biomethane: after the crops, the residues that towns and cities produce every day.

What the files contain

Layer (GPKG)	Geometry	Contents
`etes`	point	873 plants: `codigo`, `nome`, `situacao`, `tratamento` (declared process), `familia_ana`, `familia` (reactor, pond, activated sludge, other), `remocao_dbo` (BOD removal), host municipality (`CD_MUN`, `NM_MUN`) and `municipios_atendidos` (municipalities served)
`municipios`	polygon	645 municipalities: `CD_MUN`, `NM_MUN`, intermediate region, `lixo_m3_dia` (waste), `lodo_m3_dia` (sludge), `poda_m3_dia` (prunings), `urbano_m3_dia` and `lixo_ja_usado_ch4_m3_dia` (methane, not biomethane)
`regioes_intermediarias`	polygon	11 intermediate geographic regions
`limite_estadual`	polygon	outline of the state

The GPKG is zipped and attached to the agro-sp-2026 release, with the plate’s QGIS styles. There are two CSV files in UTF-8: one with the municipal table and one with the plants and their coordinates.

Method

Potential of the organic waste, sewage sludge and urban prunings substrates in the CP2B method v5.1 (Unicamp, version of 24/09/2026), reference scenario, level N4 (accessible), in m³ of biomethane equivalent per day, added up by municipality and split into six quantile classes.
Methane already used: the share the method deducts from organic waste because it is already captured at landfills with energy recovery, in m³ of methane per day, compared with the potential before that deduction.
Sewage treatment plants from ANA’s 2019 database. The database repeats plants that serve several municipalities, once per municipality, with the same code; one point is kept per code, at the host municipality’s record, and the municipios_atendidos column holds how many it serves (the Barueri plant, which serves the most, serves 11).
Process families, as ANA groups them: anaerobic reactors, pond systems, activated sludge and the rest (simplified, chemical and mixed processes).

Limitations

The CP2B potential is modelled, not measured. It accounts for the distance to where the gas would be produced. In 33 municipalities, most of them in the Ribeira and Paraíba valleys, the accessible level gives zero, and the map shows them in grey: it does not mean there is no waste.
Sludge only counts where sewage is treated; 517 municipalities give zero for sludge.
The plant database dates from 2019 and has neither flow nor population served for most plants; that is why all dots are the same size, and anaerobic reactors are drawn larger only to be seen.
An anaerobic reactor produces biogas, but the database does not say whether it is flared, used or upgraded to biomethane.

Data licence

Public data from ANA, free to use with attribution. The CP2B (Unicamp) potential is published here with the centre’s permission; cite “CP2B (Unicamp), method v5.1, 2026”.

View this map’s folder on GitHub