“We are at a dead end” with “completely overloaded infrastructures”
José Eduardo Martins, partner at Abreu Advogados and an expert in Environmental Law, took part in the podcast Vozes Circulares by Smart Waste Portugal and Rádio Observador to discuss “Waste: potential resources, future products.”
Interviewed alongside Fernando Leite, CEO of LIPOR – Association of Municipalities for Sustainable Waste Management of Greater Porto, the lawyer stated that the current waste management infrastructure is “completely overloaded.”
Several factors have contributed to this situation, including the “inability to secure funding” for the transition from dumpsites to landfills around the turn of the millennium, as well as “a significant lack of political decision-making capacity.”
“In the past 20 years, some looked ahead, while others did not. Those who didn’t argue that they went from the rudimentary dumpsite era to a financing model that involves tariffs and equipment the public was not accustomed to. Most systems in the country rely on landfills and have not evolved to extract value from other materials. And since they also failed to amortise the cost of landfills, we now find ourselves at a dead end.”
Listen to the full episode here (available only in Portuguese).
