Did you know that during the five minutes a customer drinks a coffee, one and a half tons of glass packaging are sent for recycling? Did you know that, over their lifetime, a single person can recycle enough glass to produce 10 bottles? And that the energy saved by recycling one aluminum can is enough to keep a television on for three hours?
These are some of the key messages of the Horeca Recycling Mission promoted by Sociedade Ponto Verde (SPV), which is expected to reach more than 11 establishments located in the Madeira region, the south bank of Lisbon, Paços de Ferreira, and Vila Real. Motivating hotels, restaurants, and cafes towards good practices in separating packaging for recycling is one of the main objectives of this initiative.
The 2019 edition, which is already underway and ends in December, involves teams visiting various restaurants to clarify issues in this area and encourage recycling in practice by offering reusable bags and signage with information on what to deposit or not in each of the three types of reusable bags.
This initiative, developed in partnership with the Urban Waste Management Systems (SGRU) of each region, allows Sociedade Ponto Verde to collect important indicators for decision-making regarding selective waste collection. Among the preliminary data gathered in the 2018 edition, the initiative allowed SPV to conclude that 87% of the restaurants and cafes visited already separate packaging. Some of the reasons given for not recycling are the fact that recycling points are located at great distances and that they do not have space in the establishment to store these packages. This SPV initiative addresses these issues by providing materials for easier and more practical packaging separation, namely ecobags specifically designed for these establishments. As an example, it is estimated that 30 ecobags will be distributed this year.
It should also be noted that, according to SPV data, regarding the type of material separated by these spaces, glass continues to represent the most significant share (96%), followed by paper/cardboard (91%), plastic (82%) and metal (65%).
