Covid-19 Impacts on Household Solid Waste Generation in Latin America - a Participatory Approach

The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly impacted Latin America, the continent with the highest number of cases and Covid-related deaths. Strict confinement conditions at the beginning of the pandemic put to a halt recycling activities and augmented the consumption of plastic as a barrier to stop the spread of the virus. In Latin America the lack of data to understand the waste management dynamics difficult the adjustment of waste management strategies to cope with the Covid-19. As a novel contribution to the waste management data gap for Latin America, this study uses a virtual and participatory methodology that collects and generates information on household solid waste generation and composition. Data was collected between June and November 2021 in six countries in the Latin America region, with a total of 503 participants. Participants indicated that the pandemic motivated them to initiate or increase waste reduction (41%), waste separation (40%) and waste recovery (33%) activities. 43% of participants perceived and increase on their total volume of waste; however, the quantitative data showed a decrease on household waste generation in Peru (-31%), Honduras (-25%) and Venezuela (-82%). No changes in waste composition were observed. Despite the limited sample size, this data provides a much-needed approximation of household waste generation and composition in a pandemic situation during 2021.