The president of the Lisbon City Council, Carlos Moedas, today in Brussels defended a revision of the Volta packaging deposit system, with a ten-cent refund, stressing that it is causing “serious social problems” in the Portuguese capital.
“I think this Volta policy needs to be reviewed,” stated the social-democrat mayor and former European commissioner, who noted that these “European policies are far from the people.”
Carlos Moedas, who was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the plenary session of the Committee of the Regions and after a meeting with the European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and Circular Economy, Jessika Roswall, said that the “policy’s intention is good,” but that the implementation “is turning out to be very bad” and is causing “serious problems in Lisbon.”
The mayor explained that he showed the Commissioner videos and photographs of what is happening in Lisbon and that Jessika Roswall responded that she would “facilitate a technical meeting” involving the Commission, the Portuguese Government, and the municipality of Lisbon.
Moedas defended a solution similar to what is happening in France, where the system has been suspended in some cities, with flexibility in its application.
Asked why he chose to address Volta in his intervention at the Committee of the Regions, of which he is vice-president, Carlos Moedas stated that the greatest challenge facing cities is housing, and this is a topic he has regularly raised in Brussels, but he stressed that there are other important issues as well, such as the case of the packaging deposit system.
“The reports I have from people who were in drug treatment and who have now started using the system as a way to go find a bit more drugs, to continue to sustain the addiction, this is very worrying. And, therefore, environmental policies are very important, they are crucial, but they must look first and foremost at human dignity,” he argued.
In this regard, he noted that “the dramas were already there, but they were being addressed.”
“When we have a person who is in an addiction program and leaves that program to go collect 10 cents from 200 or 300 bottles to return to drugs, then we are making this problem that already existed, which was being treated, worse,” he pointed out.
And he reinforced that the “social dramas have been increasing for many reasons.”
“One of them is the amount of drugs that began entering Portugal. As you know, drugs used to come in through the ports of Rotterdam and other northern ports. Today more is entering Portugal, prices have fallen a lot and, therefore, there is, in fact, an inundation, whether of cocaine or crack,” he argued, adding that the Government and the City Council have the responsibility to have programs to address these social problems.
Questioned by journalists about the Volta system, Luísa Salgueiro, president of the Matosinhos City Council, also present at the plenary session of the Committee of the Regions, said she does not signal “any social drama” in her municipality.
“Because of Volta there has been no change in the behaviours of risk communities. The risk communities that are part of treatment programs maintain their participation and, therefore, unlike what happens in other Portuguese cities, in Matosinhos Volta does not constitute a problem on the scale of what I heard here,” said the socialist mayor.
In operation since April 10, the Volta system allows consumers to recover the ten-cent deposit per single-use bottle and can of plastic and metal with a capacity of less than three litres at the time of purchase, by returning them at the existing collection points for this purpose in mainland Portugal, the Azores and Madeira.
