MIGUEL A. LOPES / LUSA
“A lot of things are bought” and this is a Christmas period also for workers in the waste sector, warns association Zero: it is necessary to take “a step forward” and “penalize those who do not cooperate”.
The Christmas season continues to produce an excess of waste, which is not always managed in the best way, according to expert Susana Fonseca, who regrets the little progress made in recent decades, particularly by companies.
“There is an excess of packaging. There is little evolution work on the part of brands. There has been no transition in terms of sustainability. The models of disposability, of packaging as a selling point”, he criticizes in statements to Lusa.
Susana Fonseca is vice-president of the environmental association Zero but 18 years ago she was part of another environmental association, Quercus, when in statements to Lusa she also pointed out the “large margin” of the Portuguese population that still did not recycle, regarding the domestic waste from the 24th and 25th of December.
Today, asked by Lusa about what has changed in almost two decades, she says that what is different today is a better network of ecopoints, closer to people, which can lead to greater recycling, but adds that on the other hand there has been a increased consumptionwith people having “access to many more things”, to online commerce, to “”. “We buy a lot of things.”
These are things that are spent a lot of money on, that produce a lot of waste and that are sometimes almost waste themselves, useless items that sit in a drawer for years until they also end up in the trash, he says.
In these years there was also no “significant evolution” in the disposal of waste on the streets, on Christmas Day or the following day, forgetting that It is a period of less collectionChristmas time also for workers in the sector.
Susana Fonseca does not see much progress in recent years, and to avoid the same discourse within the next 20 years, she advocates a change in the system.
Paying for garbage: anyone who doesn’t recycle is fined
“If we produce less waste, being more rigorous in our choices, we will not have direct benefits. We pay for waste depending on water consumption. Until we create a system in which people pay for what they did not separate, the situation will not be resolved”, he explains.
And he emphasizes that it is necessary to take “a step forward” and encourage adherence to separation and recycling and “penalize those who do not cooperate”.
The expert also argues that there is a structural component to change, to make life easier for the population, “because managing waste is not the most important thing in people’s daily lives”. But regarding the last 20 years, she confesses discouragedly: “We’ve been marking time”.
With “very low” waste separation rates, with the need to also separate bio-waste, with European targets for waste that are not met, “another approach” is really needed, also on the part of municipalities.
Without data to indicate that there is now more waste separation at Christmas, with “doll packaging continuing to be made of paper and plastic”, Susana Fonseca appeals to people’s conscience. “At least don’t put rubbish on the streets right after Christmas Eve.”
And since 18 years ago he left the same advice, which is still current, about use of packages (the tapes are not recyclable but are reusable), about managing food waste.
“I like to believe that there are more people doing this, for whom it makes sense. But they are not enough, they are not the majority”, he says.
In 2024, 5.52 million tons of urban waste were collected in Portugal, 182.8 thousand tons more than in 2023, according to official data. Each inhabitant produced an average of 516.2 kilos of waste that year, 11.6 kilos more than the previous year.
