Emídio Sousa was speaking to journalists at the end of a visit to Ambigroup in Seixal, in the Setúbal district, a business group that provides waste management, treatment, recycling and recovery services.

“We are far below what we should be doing in terms of recycling, but we have to be pragmatic. Civic awareness and environmental awareness are not enough. We have to encourage citizens to recycle,” he said.

The official explained that the working group created at the end of November with the mission of developing the Landfill Emergency Plan and the medium-term strategy with regard to urban and non-urban waste management should incorporate this idea into its conclusions.

“At least that’s one of the suggestions I make. It means that everyone pays for the waste they produce and receives as a result of the recycling they carry out. There must be a balance here between what we deliver as waste, as trash, and what we do, the separation we make. It does not reach civic consciousness. It’s not enough, we’re not there”, emphasized Emídio Sousa.

The Secretary of State for the Environment said that technology already exists in other countries that can be applied to implement this idea and that models will be studied.

This system in which everyone pays as they produce and receive a bonus as they recycle, he said, will pass through the municipalities.

“One of the challenges facing the working group is to think, on a voluntary basis, that municipalities can join these systems. Because these are very high investments,” he said.

Europe, he said, has set very ambitious goals, and they must be met, hoping that the working group will present rapid conclusions.

“It’s not enough to write good diplomas, good laws, but then you have to comply with them. And that is the challenge we have”, he said, adding that the landfill should always be the last option.

Before landfills, he explained, there must be a focus on separating materials, recycling them and extracting all possible components of these materials.

When there is no recycling or reuse solution, he added, there must be a solution for energy recovery from waste.

“Energy can be produced from some of this waste that cannot be recovered. So that’s what we’re also going to do in the near future,” he said.

However, he warned that all these investments to be made in the coming years take time and, in the short term, what needs to be done is to optimize the current landfills, a measure that sometimes means “a slight expansion or increase in quotas”.