Quem trata o resíduo: O resíduo urbano está em toda parte; quem o trata, em poucos lugares

Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura

No. 080 Energy · biomass The bioeconomy at work 5/5

Who treats the waste

Urban waste is everywhere; those who treat it are in few places

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Map of São Paulo’s municipalities in five shades of grey-green by the biomethane potential of organic rubbish, sewage sludge and prunings, darker in the large towns, with brick-coloured circles proportional to formal jobs in waste treatment and disposal. The circles are few and gathered in Greater São Paulo, the Paraíba Valley and some inland towns; many dark mid-sized towns have no circle. Callouts point to the capital, with 23% of urban biomethane and 1,861 treatment jobs, and Piracicaba, with 13,000 m³ a day and no jobs. In the panel, the legend, the reference circles and bars with waste and sewage jobs per 10,000 people in each intermediate region. — Fig. 080 São Paulo State (SP) EPSG:4674 Source: MTE/PDET, CP2B (Unicamp), IBGE

São Paulo’s organic rubbish, sewage sludge and prunings would yield 621,000 m³ of biomethane a day at CP2B’s accessible level, and that matter is in every town. Those who treat it are not. Only 71 of the 645 municipalities have formal jobs in waste treatment and disposal, landfills, composting and biogas plants: 7,555 in the state, against 52,000 in collection. The capital has 23% of urban biomethane and 1,861 of those jobs; São José dos Campos, Arujá and Caieiras come next. Yet 44% of urban biomethane lies in municipalities with no treatment jobs at all: Piracicaba has 13,000 m³ a day and none; São José do Rio Preto, 12,000 and none. There, waste travels to a landfill in another municipality or is handled by the council, outside the private count. Fifth and last plate of the collection “The bioeconomy at work”.

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At a glance

Layers

municipios polygon 645 municipalities: jobs in sewage, collection, treatment and recovery, jobs per 10,000 people and urban biomethane potential (same GPKG as plate 076)
regioes_intermediarias polygon 11 intermediate geographic regions
limite_estadual polygon State boundary

Metadata

Sources: MTE/PDET — RAIS 2025: establishments (RAIS ESTAB PUB), active jobs on 31/12 by CNAE 2.0 subclass and municipality (2025)
CP2B (Unicamp) — biogas and biomethane potential by municipality, method v5.1 (2026)
IBGE — 2022 Population Census: municipal population (2022)
IBGE — Municipal Mesh 2025 (2025)
Extent: São Paulo State (SP)
CRS / Projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674)
EPSG:4674
Software: Node.js · d3-geo · QGIS
Method: Urban-waste biomethane potential by municipality (CP2B v5.1, level N4, reference scenario: organic waste, sewage sludge and prunings), in five classes, and circles proportional to active jobs on 31/12/2025 in waste treatment and disposal (CNAE 38.21 and 38.22, RAIS 2025).
Version: v1.0.0
Licence: CC BY 4.0
DOI: being registered on Zenodo

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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). Quem trata o resíduo: o resíduo urbano está em toda parte; quem o trata, em poucos lugares [Who treats the waste: Urban waste is everywhere; those who treat it are in few places] (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Essencial. https://aikiesan.github.io/essencial-geo/en/maps/080-quem-trata-o-residuo-sp/

@dataset{cerejo2026_quem_trata_o_residuo_sp,
  author    = {Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura},
  title     = {Quem trata o resíduo: O resíduo urbano está em toda parte; quem o trata, em poucos lugares},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Essencial},
  version   = {1.0.0},
  url       = {https://aikiesan.github.io/essencial-geo/en/maps/080-quem-trata-o-residuo-sp/},
  language  = {portuguese},
  note      = {English title: Who treats the waste: Urban waste is everywhere; those who treat it are in few places. Licence CC BY 4.0}
}

How to read this plate area, projection, scale, legend and source · 5 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: 3 layers in the GeoPackage · 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: MTE/PDET (2025); CP2B (Unicamp) (2026); IBGE (2022); 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.
N1 to N4 (potential levels): CP2B’s four levels: N1 theoretical (all residue generated), N2 technical (after collection), N3 mobilisable (after competing uses and what already becomes biogas) and N4 accessible (after storage and the logistic factor).
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.
RAIS: The Labour Ministry’s Annual Social Information Report: the formal jobs each establishment declares, with municipality and economic activity (CNAE).

Anatomy of a plate Full glossary

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

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Method notes · No. 080

Urban waste and who treats it across São Paulo’s municipalities

Português · English

Plate No. 080, the last of five in the collection The bioeconomy at work. The bioeconomy’s weight in each municipality is on plate 076; sanitation, on plates 051 to 054.

In the United Kingdom, anaerobic digestion maps set installed treatment capacity beside the food waste each region generates, to show where plants are missing. This plate reads São Paulo in a similar way: the potential of urban waste underneath and, on top, where people work to treat it.

What the files contain

Layer (GPKG)	Geometry	Content
`municipios`	polygon	645 municipalities: `res`, `res_esgoto`, `res_coleta`, `res_tratamento`, `res_recuperacao`, `res_10mil` (waste and sewage jobs per 10,000 people), `pessoas` and `biometano_urbano` (m³/day)
`regioes_intermediarias`, `limite_estadual`	polygon	reference

It is the GPKG of plate 076, with the QGIS style res_10mil. The CSV has the municipal table, without geometry.

Method

Urban waste: CP2B biomethane potential (method v5.1, level N4, reference scenario) from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, sewage sludge and prunings, in m³ per day, in five classes: up to 500, 500 to 1,500, 1,500 to 4,000, 4,000 to 10,000 and over 10,000.
Who treats it: active jobs on 31/12/2025 (RAIS 2025) in CNAE classes 38.21 and 38.22 (treatment and disposal of non-hazardous and hazardous waste), as circles of proportional area.
In the panel, all waste and sewage jobs (CNAE 37.01, 37.02, 38.11, 38.12, 38.21, 38.22, 38.31, 38.32 and 38.39) per 10,000 people from the 2022 Census, by intermediate region.

Limitations

RAIS only counts firms and bodies reporting jobs in these classes. A council that runs its own landfill with civil servants shows up in another class, and treatment disappears from the map.
A job sits at the establishment’s address: a regional landfill appears in one municipality only, and a concession at its head office.
Employment measures the size of the operation, not where the waste ends up: landfill, composting and digestion are counted together.

View this map’s folder on GitHub