An accelerating dilemma

This week, environmentalist Antonio Lambe shares his thoughts on Portugal’s steadily-growing problem of waste disposal. It’s a problem that is rapidly reaching crunch-point. The country’s landfill sites are filling far quicker than initially estimated, and our record at recycling is shamefully poor. Anyone interested in getting to grips with this growing problem, and doing their bit for the future, should read on…

The concept of waste does not exist in nature - everything is reused and recycled. Almost everything is regenerated. In our society, however, waste is a major and growing problem.

According to Eurostat (2008) European households throw out over half a tonne of garbage per person annually. The consequences of this profligacy are serious. Apart from the resources destroyed - 40% is buried in community landfills, 20% is burned in incinerators - there are several other harmful effects. The United Nations Development Programme estimates that more than five million people die worldwide each year from diseases related to inadequate waste disposal systems.

The effect on plants and animals is, obviously, far worse. Surface and subterranean water is contaminated with run-off. Air is polluted with NOx, SO2, dioxins and fine, lung-penetrating dust and emissions of ozone-depleting substances.

And then there is the smell. This can be so bad that residents near the Barlavento landfill in Portimão - who watch their property values fall as a mountain of rubbish rises on the horizon - have been compelled to close their windows even on hot nights.

Loss of biodiversity and the spread of invasive species - on the tens of thousands of tons of rubbish that currently floats on ocean currents - are other consequences.

There is also a more recent concern: climate change. As paper, food, and other biodegradable waste breaks down in landfills, methane - a well-known greenhouse gas which is nearly 70 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide - is released.

When plastics and textiles are burned in incinerators Nitrous oxide - nearly 300 times more powerful than CO2 - is emitted.

Recognising most of these threats, in 1975 the European Union outlawed common (and much more polluting) rubbish dumps, to which most municipal solid waste - especially in poorer southern member states - had been destined.

With funding from Brussels in the 90s, Portugal began building over 40 sanitary landfills, two of which now process all of the Algarve’s 355,000 tons of annual refuse - the country’s highest regional figure.

Official lip service is paid to the importance of the three Rs: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, in waste management - but rubbish does not appear to be a priority.

Promotion of public awareness is modest, while community requests for “ecopontos”, where garbage can be sorted, are often ignored. (A Silves community, for example, has been waiting two years for an “ecoponto”).

Similarly, there has been no government encouragement of businesses to reduce packaging - while many supermarkets continue to hand out free plastic bags indiscriminately.

The authorities could also institute fiscal incentives to promote recycled content in new products.

But the problem doesn’t just lie with the government. We, the citizens must also respond. And earlier this year with the massive nationwide «Limpar Portugal» initiative, citizens came out in force. Thousands of volunteers collected tons of rubbish and rubble strewn across the country. The response was both unprecedented and, in a nation with the lowest civic participation on the continent, historic and promising. But the group has largely remained dormant since then instead of taking advantage of public opinion and pushing for follow-up events.

As a result of these official and public shortcomings, recycling and composting rates in Portugal are predictably disappointing. While Austria, Germany and the Netherlands divert and reuse most of their waste, 70, 65 and 60%, respectively, Portugal buries or burns all but 17% of its trash.

So poor is this effort that most of the country’s landfills are reaching capacity much faster than expected.

Many readers may already be helping to slow this process by sorting items into the three “ecoponto” bins for “Glass”, “Paper” and “Containers” rather than dumping everything as unsorted “lixo” (rubbish). But questions remain about what goes where; and a major problem faced by municipalities is incorrect separation: juice cartons in the paper bin, for example. Some pointers concerning less obvious materials follow:

Containers:

‘Tetrapak’ or ‘Brik’ cartons; (although mainly paper, they contain plastic and an aluminium liner.)

Paper pet biscuit bags with plastic liner unless you separate the paper and plastic layers first;

Drained plastic edible oil bottles and reasonably clean margarine containers;

Plastic bags with paper labels (such as bakery items);

Woven plastic bags (for potatoes, onions, etc.);

All other plastic bags, preferably reused several times;

Garden fertiliser bags

Paper:

Cardboard detergent boxes can have plastic handles attached;

Glass:

Metal and plastic tops need not be removed from glass bottles and jars although putting them in “Embalagens” is preferable.

General rubbish:

Cellophane, cling film;

Aluminium foil (unfortunately. Only Hungary recycles less aluminium than Portugal.)

Empty paper sacks of cement and other construction materials and plastic motor oil and additive bottles cannot be recycled (yet) because of the residues they contain.

Monsters:

This is the term for the miscellaneous, often large items such as domestic appliances. But garden or agricultural products such as plastic irrigation tubing, greenhouse sheeting and shade cloth as well as paint tins, unless the tins are clean, also fall into this category. Each borough council treats this waste differently and should be consulted about proper disposal.

General advice

- Please note the order of the three R’s - Recycling is the last. Reduction is best.

- Compost as much as you can at home. The main source of unpleasant smell, and a major source of potentially polluting leachates at landfills, is food waste.

- Crush cartons and tins before disposal to save “ecoponto” space.

- Standard batteries have a few “ecopontos” and some larger stores provide for their disposal.

- NEVER use drains for used motor oils. All mechanics have recycling facilities.

The planet on whose health ours depends is under threat. Some of those threats, like damage to the ozone layer, are abstruse. Others, like climate change appear remote and few of us grasp, still less accept that we will have to make major changes in the way we live if we hope to bequeath a liveable planet to our children.

Dealing responsibly with our rubbish, on the other hand, is a far easier problem to overcome. May we be up to that modest challenge.