I learned the word trash long before I learned to read. The smell of leachate rose so high on rainy days that it was impossible to breathe. It was the odor from the landfill that existed for 28 years in Perus, my neighborhood, in the northwest region of São Paulo.
For all that time, tons and tons of garbage from across the city came to live right under our noses. "Perus, the great landfill of the richest city in Brazil." Through much struggle, my neighbors shut down the dump. It is a historic achievement, already chronicled by this Folha.
I was 10 years old when the movement visited my school and left a pamphlet that read "Landfill + 1 no more." Already knowing how to read, I picked up the word landfill and marched to the principal's office to ask that we do something about it. What do you say to a child who is angry and determined to change the place where she lives?
I understood early on that it was necessary to bring many people together to read that word aloud and fight against it. From time to time, the "trashological" leviathan raises its guard and, unfortunately, attacks the neighborhood again.
A little over a year ago, we residents discovered that the São Paulo City Hall had approved the construction of so-called energy recovery units in four locations across the city, one of them in Perus, alongside the concessionaire Loga. In other words, a waste incinerator.
The name is frightening — that must be why they changed it. It evokes something like burning people alive. Burning the future. Burning dreams. Burning. They nicknamed the project an ecopark. But it has nothing of a park, much less anything eco(logical). It is just the pretty word they invented to bring tons of garbage to dirty Perus once again.
The current administration disregarded the Municipal Plan for Integrated Solid Waste Management, created in 2014 through the popular participation of more than 800 people across 58 meetings, whose main guideline was always to say "no to solid waste incineration."
Targeted by protests from Perus residents in May, city hall stated that the planned equipment follows strict parameters and poses no risks to public health "when operated in accordance with current environmental regulations."
These "machines" burn mainly paper and plastic, competing for the most valuable materials used by recycling cooperatives and destroying the livelihoods of waste pickers throughout the city.
Since 2024, Instituto Pólis, the Climate Observatory, the Zero Waste Brazil Alliance, and other collectives have been denouncing the incinerator project in the city, which is included in the 20-year extension of waste collection service concessions granted without proper competitive bidding.
"The city decided in 2014, through a participatory process, that it did not want incineration, and now it is receiving four incinerators contracted without competitive bidding and without public consultation. While in Pinheiros the city hall celebrates the revitalization of a former incinerator, it exports pollution to the poor neighborhoods on the outskirts. The equipment is going to the neighborhoods that participated least in that decision and that will live most with the emissions," says Victor Argentino, from Instituto Pólis.
"There is a deliberate choice of territory here, with a clear reproduction of environmental racism mechanisms in the production of the city, and it needs to be explained to the population," he adds.
In July of this year, the Public Defender's Office of the State of São Paulo asked the courts to annul the clauses authorizing the construction of the four waste incinerators in the state capital, an "investment" of 7.48 billion reais.
An incinerator is one of the most effective ways to decimate a population's future. Professor Jeffer Castelo Branco, director of the Association to Combat Pollutants (ACPO), explained something that deeply saddened me.
"The substances emitted by these machines, which are often under no form of control whatsoever, are pollutants that interfere with the hormonal system — with women's hormonal systems being the most affected, as they are more complex and capable of generating life. [Toxic pollutants] can cause problems in fetal development and child development, which will lead to problems in adult life. Installing an incinerator means exposing the population to risk."
For this reason, in 2025, we created the movement "No waste incinerator in Perus." We also support the campaign "Don't Burn Our Future!", which raises awareness about the dangers of waste incineration.
As you can see, it is a monster with many tentacles that survives on the remnants of filth lurking in the underground world of those who hold power and money. It changes its appearance, updates itself, uses technology to disguise the ugly face of its past. But those who were born breathing garbage and watched their own people die from the invisible monster that inhabits the air above every head will not be fooled by empty talk.
The word Perus, from the Tupi language, means waters between the stones. But the waters are still, and the garbage wants to take over everything once again. Can you imagine what it is like to have waste hovering over your head, like an intact drone, with the potential to kill dozens, thousands, over the years? I very much wanted to write about memory, to invent a beautiful and pleasant fiction to read, to give thanks for another day with gratitude — but I opened the window and the cloud of the future appeared grey and acid.
This Sunday, September 20th, the anti-incineration movement will take part in the 2026 Climate March in the city of São Paulo, starting at 2pm, departing from Lasar Segall Square on Domingos de Morais Street, near the Vila Mariana metro station (south zone).
If you also do not want air pollution to reach your family, join us.
