The Minister of the Environment rejected today the idea of cancelling the Volta packaging deposit system, refusing to accept that it is responsible for the “social drama” of people rummaging through trash to collect bottles, as alleged by the president of Lisbon City Hall.
“The social drama is independent of Volta. It is a social drama related to poverty, related to homelessness, and that they seek to obtain some income by using these bottles,” stated the Minister of the Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, in remarks to journalists in Strasbourg, after the State of the Union debate.
Questioned about the request by Lisbon’s City Hall president, Carlos Moedas (PSD), for the Government (PSD/CDS-PP) to “immediately” cancel the Volta system, with a 10-cent reimbursement per container, Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho refused to put an end to this plastic recycling instrument, even noting that it is “mandatory at the European level.”
Considering that the Volta system makes “more visible” social problems, such as poverty and people in homelessness, and problems in urban hygiene, the Environment Minister said that there are other cities in Europe that faced the same problem as Lisbon and solved it “by placing these returnable containers in a separate receptacle from the rest of the trash.”
“It could be one of the solutions. We are studying the solutions to apply. And there you avoid the issue of spreading the waste, which is one of the issues that President Carlos Moedas points out,” she indicated, arguing that creating a separate container for Volta packaging will allow there to be “no mixing” with the rest of the trash.
Revealing that she had already spoken with the president of Lisbon City Hall about the situation, the official reinforced that the problems reported “far exceed the issue of the return of plastics,” because “they are more structural than this Volta system.”
Maria da Graça Carvalho reminded that Portugal was the 19th country in the European Union to implement this packaging deposit system, for both plastic bottles and cans, as part of fulfilling a measure of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
“The problems that arise we solve, but in many places it is going well. In fact, 304 million bottles have been returned, recycled, and in a positive way, which went well; therefore, this application in Portugal is considered a success,” the minister declared, rejecting any rollback of the Volta system, which has been in operation since 10 April.
The minister stressed that the system “is being successful” regarding packaging recycling, to such an extent that the target of 40% by the end of this year has already been surpassed, currently recording 44% of plastic bottles returned.
The official also noted that since 2023, for not having a packaging deposit system, Portugal has paid 200 million euros per year, totaling 600 million euros in fines to the European Commission for not recycling plastic bottles.
Regarding the concerns of municipalities, particularly Lisbon, Maria da Graça Carvalho said that the Government is available to help and understand the problems recorded, but stressed that “the waste issues themselves cannot be attributed to the Volta system,” pointing to the need to improve waste collection and urban cleaning in cities.
“We have other kinds of responsibilities at the waste level and I have never hidden that waste is our biggest environmental challenge,” she declared.
The president of Lisbon City Hall asked the Government to “cancel the Volta packaging deposit system immediately,” arguing that “an environmental policy should be neither a tax nor a social drama.”
“I ask the Government to do exactly what was done in France, cancel this system immediately. It is a good intention. It is a bad result. We do not want it,” Carlos Moedas said on Tuesday, at the Lisbon Municipal Assembly meeting.
Today, before the Environment minister’s public response, Moedas stated that the Volta system results from a European obligation and that if it is not implemented, Portugal will have to pay a fine, but he added: “If the French did not pay that fine and stopped, we can surely do the same thing.”
The Volta system has had negative impacts on urban hygiene in Lisbon, as well as in other municipalities, with bins rummaged through or even dumped on the street, in order to obtain the 10-cent reimbursement per container.
