The president of the Lisbon City Council, Carlos Moedas (PSD), on Monday asked the Government (PSD/CDS-PP) to “immediately cancel” the Volta packaging deposit system, with the 10-cent reimbursement, stating that it has generated “an unprecedented social drama”.
“This summer also brought a new challenge: the Volta system, the recycling and reuse policy is necessary, and a city like ours must be concerned with increasingly recycling more, but an environmental policy should be neither a tax nor a social drama,” said the social-democrat Carlos Moedas at the Lisbon Municipal Assembly meeting.
“Once again, I urge the Government to do exactly as it was done in France, immediately cancel this system. It is a well-intentioned idea. It is a poor result. We do not want it,” expressed Carlos Moedas.
In operation since 10 April, the Volta system allows consumers to recover the 10-cent deposit per packaging paid at the time of purchase of single-use bottles and cans, made of plastic, metal and aluminum and under three liters, by returning them at the existing points for this purpose in mainland Portugal, the Azores and Madeira.
The packaging deposit system has caused negative impacts on urban hygiene in Lisbon, as well as in other municipalities, with containers rummaged through or even dumped on public streets in order to obtain the respective refund.
Regarding the municipal executive’s work in the last three months, the PSD mayor thanked the workers of the CML and the 24 parish councils for cleaning the city, responding to more than 100 events that occurred in the capital during this period, notably the Lisbon Festivities, the Book Fair, the FIFA World Cup, Rock in Rio, the Volta a Portugal and Kalorama, adding that 2,600 containers were placed to ensure the city remained clean.
In this regard, Sofia Lisboa, a PCP deputy, expressed satisfaction that Carlos Moedas defends the end of the Volta system, but cautioned that this stance by the president of the CML does not allow for rest on the issue, criticizing the “subordination of the Government to private interests”.
“Who pays for this system,” asked the Communist deputy, lamenting the phenomenon of rummaging through the trash in search of packaging bearing the Volta symbol.
Sofia Lisboa also said that recent data place Lisbon as the municipality with the highest number of complaints about urban waste, stating that “overflowing containers, accumulation of waste, lack of cleanliness, bad odors and the proliferation of rats and cockroaches are public health and quality-of-life problems”.
The PCP member also criticized the response of the PSD/CDS-PP/IL governance in the CML which, “after having said decentralization had been a problem, now seems to be privatization,” instead of strengthening the means, the workers and the public capacity for intervention.
In response, the Urban Hygiene councillor, Joana Baptista (an independent elected by the PSD), argued that “there is a big difference between contracting externally and privatization” and guaranteed that complaints about garbage did not increase in the current year, but rather decreased.
