Each inhabitant of this country is said to produce an average of 1.4 kg of rubbish per day, but about 56% is sent to landfills. How hard is it to separate our recyclable products and drop them off in the appropriate bins or take them to a recycling centre? In some areas, it’s even possible to arrange a pick-up of recyclables as part of household collections.

Biowaste

In the old days, recycling was pretty basic – in England, my mother kept a metal bucket in the shed outside where peelings and plate scrapings were collected for the local ‘pigman’, who collected everyone’s food scraps in it to feed his pigs. A bit unhygienic perhaps by today’s standards! Here, plate scrapings and similar household food waste should be placed in the appropriate garbage bin for general non-recyclable waste. For larger amounts of food waste from businesses, or for items that need specific disposal, it is best to contact your local municipality's waste management services to learn about licensed collection and treatment options. Additionally, voluntary movements like REFOOD address food waste by rescuing good surplus food and redistributing it to those in need within the community.

Contacting your local authority or searching Ecoponto.pt can provide information on specific organic waste collection points nearby. According to Tratolixo (an inter-municipal recycling company), the leftovers a family produces here in a year would generate electricity for an LED TV for three months!

Why are we not doing well at recycling?
I think we have every opportunity to recycle, as it seems that bins are almost everywhere, and are clearly marked and colour-coded. Portugal's performance has improved, but still lags behind many other EU countries, and despite infrastructure being in place, there's still a problem with residents mixing recyclable materials with general waste.

What can be recycled into the ‘plastics’ bin?

The biggest item seems to be water bottles – every recycling station is adorned by a collection of bottles strung together in a bulky bouquet. The plastic caps can be left screwed on, too, and can also be recycled, as there is specific machinery for separating them. Modern recycling equipment can process both the bottle and the cap together, as machinery can separate the different plastics for recycling. This prevents loss, as loose caps are too small to be captured by sorting machinery and can end up in landfills or become litter. You don’t even need to take old labels off, just rinse, flatten, then re-cap them. It’s not that difficult, surely? Add in plastic yoghurt pots, tubs, and food trays, and items like shampoo bottles, cleaning products and drinks bottles. Just rinse them all first, too.


Leftover food and liquid in recyclable bottles can spoil the recycling process by contaminating other materials, gumming up machinery, creating pests and odours, and potentially causing entire loads of recyclables to be rejected and sent to a landfill. While some residues don't ruin glass and metal, paper-based items like cardboard are particularly vulnerable to spoilage from food or liquid, decreasing their value and recyclability.

Recycling is an energy-intensive process that becomes more costly if additional steps, such as post-consumer selection and washing, are added.

Global Plastics

About 75% of global plastics produced are thermoplastics that can be melted and moulded over and over to produce new plastics, which – in theory – makes all thermoplastics recyclable. The remaining 25% of plastics are thermoset plastics that do not soften when exposed to heat, making them near-impossible to recycle.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

By recycling, we are sparing virgin raw materials. In this way, ore mining, tree felling and oil extraction are postponed. Recycling plastic helps reduce oil consumption; recycling metal packaging helps reduce the use of ore; used recycled glass saves using more sand to produce glass; recycled paper uses less energy and water than making it from vegetable fibre; and recycling wood packaging means fewer trees are felled. And if a cardboard box won’t fit into the recycling bin, it should be broken down and flattened. This reduces the volume of the cardboard and creates more space for other people’s stuff!