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Research by Brazil’s Veja magazine has demonstrated that 45 percent of the country’s households are not connected to any form of waste disposal.  Some 90 million people are using cesspits or ditches which are often leading to rivers and the sea.

With an average growth in sewage installation of 1.58 percent per year, Brazil’s progress on this front is now behind Angola and Ecuador – with the worst areas affected being in the north and the north east, in order as follows: Porto Velho (2 percent of sewage connection coverage); Belém (6 percent); Macapá (7 percent); Manaus (11 percent); Teresina (15 percent); Rio Branco (19 percent); Maceió (31 percent); Natal (31 percent); Aracaju (34 percent) and Recife (37 percent).

The main concerns are the high levels of diseases that are present in areas with little provision – in Belém, 500 out of every 100,000 people experience diarrhea on a yearly basis – a proportion that is 36 times higher than in the state of São Paulo where 99 percent of households have adequate connection.  The damage being done to the environment is also having a devastating effect.

Public investment has remained low – according to Veja, the R$ 5.7 billion that was allocated in 2009 provides just 4 percent of what is necessary to bring the national network to universal standards.  One of the promises of Dilma Rousseff’s campaign was to provide what she termed as a ‘revolution’ in residential waste disposal up until 2014 and – whilst the Ministry of Cities announced a R$ 14.5 billion investment plan – the situation according to infrastructure specialists is still likely to remain serious.