We are once again entering the time of year when consumerism soars to almost stratospheric levels. With each click, you buy another object that you don’t need, packed in layers of plastic and artificial urgency.
We just passed by Black Friday e Cyber Mondaywe are now experiencing early and prolonged promotions: there is an entire calendar dedicated to buying. But, as always, there is “after”. And this is rarely discussed.
In Portugal, we have a well-known tendency: we only address serious problems when our backs are against the wall. Having worked closely with the waste sector, the hidden phase of this entire cycle, it is difficult for me to witness the prolonged inertia of institutions in the face of what happens at the end of the line. And, finally, we understand the undifferentiated waste, the contents of the black bag that we deposit in the container and that, from then on, we mentally prefer to forget.
Where does our trash go?
Few Portuguese people know the destination of the majority of the waste they produce. The answer is simple and uncomfortable: 59% of all urban waste produced in Portugal ends up in a landfill. Literally, in a hole.
And this happens in the 21st century, the same era in which we talk about artificial intelligence as the greatest industrial revolution since steam. In the waste, however, we were stuck in the last century: without artificial intelligence, without human intelligence, just an extension of practices that have been known for decades to be unsustainable.
Decades of “management” which, in plain English, has been more of an exercise in pushing the problem with the belly.
Solutions exist. What doesn’t exist is will
Portugal has long had proven operational solutions. Lipor, in Greater Porto, or Valorsul, in Lisbon, have energy recovery plants that transform part of the unsorted waste into electricity. It is mature, safe technology and capable of generating enough energy to supply, for example, a city with more than 150 thousand inhabitants such as Maia or Odivelas.
These plants have existed in Portugal for over 25 years. In Europe, there are more than 500 similar units. Landfilling waste, on the other hand, is the most basic, environmentally damaging and economically short-sighted option.
Despite this, we were never able to make these solutions a coherent national policy. We prefer to multiply landfills until we reach the obvious and inevitable point: they are practically all at their limit and no one wants a new hole opened near their home. And with good reason. People live in the 21st century. Public policies do not always.
2035: the clock is ticking
The European Union has set clear targets: less than 10% of urban waste to landfill by 2035.
We have just over a decade and a long journey ahead. Meeting these goals requires immediate, strategic and comprehensive decisions. It is not enough to talk about recycling (where we are still far from ideal), nor just focus on one solution. We will have to act on several fronts: reduce waste production; invest in reuse and make the economy more circular; radically improve separation and recycling; energetically value what cannot be recycled; close, rehabilitate and monitor the landfills that still remain throughout the country.
In an ideal world, we would recycle everything and there would be no need for energy recovery plants or landfills. But that world doesn’t exist yet. Refusing present solutions, based on future ambitions, has been a sure recipe for stagnation.
No more holes
It’s time to make a fundamental choice: do we want to continue opening holes in the country to hide trash? Or do we prefer an integrated, modern strategy aligned with Europe, which extracts the greatest possible value from waste, protects the territory and stops treating the problem as something that can be solved “far away”, out of sight?
Portugal has knowledge, technology and successful examples within its own borders. All that’s left is to use them.
Perhaps this time of rampant consumerism is the right time to remember that everything we buy has a history, a useful life and necessarily has an end. And that this end cannot be a hole.