The Minister of the Environment today defended that the reduction of solid waste is not only an environmental issue, it is also ethical and economic, and announced that by 2027 there will be an alternative to lightweight plastic bags in supermarkets.
“It’s no longer only an environmental issue, it’s also an ethical issue, a commitment to the new generations, because waste, when we create it and do not reuse it, has to be treated and treatment costs money,” said Maria da Graça Carvalho.
The Minister of Environment and Energy underscored that treating waste “costs society a lot, and the state budget” and, when they are not treated, “it also costs a lot,” because Portugal pays “large fines to the European Commission.”
“Only for plastic, we have paid 600 million euros (ME) in these last three years. When we produce waste we are spending a state budget that does not go to other things, that does not go to Health, to Education or to environmental issues and to improving our quality of life, therefore, it is a mission for all of us,” she said.
Among the options available to any citizen is to go shopping and buy in bulk, as in the old days, as well as cooking or going to a restaurant and taking home what remains to reuse, the minister suggested, recalling that “the amount of household biowaste in Portugal is very large.”
The minister spoke to journalists about the need for a “change of mindset” on the sidelines of the 35th anniversary ceremony of the Association of Municipalities of the Planalto Beirão Region, in Tondela, in the district of Viseu.
“Our European target for landfill deposition is 10% by 2035. When we arrived, in April 2024, it was 59% and, at present, we have reduced it to 54%, but we are still very far away,” she acknowledged.
Reducing the landfill deposition rate, the minister argued, “has to be a fight of the government, of the municipalities,” and “of civil society, of the large surfaces, of distributors” and of the citizens.
She argued that it is necessary “to change the mindset and the procedures, so that there is ever less waste,” admitting even that “this should already have changed.”
“Now, we are trying new alternatives, so that in the coming year we do not use lightweight plastic bags and have alternatives to those bags,” she stated.
In this sense, the Government is working with the association of supermarkets that has already presented alternatives to lightweight plastic bags, using “other materials,” such as fabric.
“We produce, per year, 519 kilograms of waste, therefore, there are areas of the country that produce, per person, per day, more than two kilograms of waste, far above European targets and, without a downward trend, we have a tendency to increase,” she acknowledged.
To journalists, the minister said that there are measures underway in the country, some supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), such as the “use and valorization of biomethane.”
“We now have a very wide set of projects that produce a renewable gas; we have greatly encouraged that production and now, with all the legislation that makes it possible and we have simplified the procedures for project authorizations,” she said.
Maria da Graça Carvalho added that biomethane projects are under way in cities such as Évora, Beja, Faro and Olhão that “are already, partially, being fed with biomethane.”
Also the production of fuel derived from waste, “which is called the energetic valorization of the residual fraction” is another of the measures the minister highlighted to journalists for reducing solid waste.
