Meanwhile, the Government has also shown interest in this matter.

The Minister of the Environment admitted adding glass to the deposit and refund system, which came into effect on 10 April, for plastic and metal packaging, but said it is necessary to assess the economic advantage compared to glass recycling.

"It may make sense to have a glass deposit and refund system, but we have to have very well accounted for, from an economic point of view, the advantage of a glass deposit and refund system compared to the system we are using now," said the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, at the Government headquarters, on Campus XXI, in Lisbon, regarding the entry into force of the deposit and refund system, called Volta.

Regarding the non-inclusion of glass packaging in the machines, a criticism from environmental associations, the Minister of the Environment said that glass has a different system and cannot be crushed in this way, and that, at the moment, it would not offer much advantage over using the glass recycling point.

"In the case of glass SDRs, they don't have much advantage over the system we already use, the glass recycling point," explained the Minister.

After being questioned whether including glass in the SDR would be worthwhile to meet the recycling targets for this material, which are currently below the target, Maria da Graça Carvalho said that it is first necessary to understand the mechanics of glass.

"There needs to be a lot of attention paid to the cost-benefit ratio, and that's what needs to be considered for glass, to see what the best solution is," said the Minister.

Plans for recycling

Although the SDR focuses on recycling, Maria da Graça Carvalho indicated that investments are also being made in the reuse of packaging, through the Recovery and Resilience Plan. (PRR)

“We now have investments in the various operational programs of the Cohesion Fund, the Sustainable 2030 program and the regional programs,” he added.