Novo Verde collected more than 13.000 packaging units at this year’s Festival Paredes de Coura, surpassing last year’s totals.
The event, which by its nature fosters the production of packaging waste, hosted a pilot project in which consumers were offered incentives for discarding PET plastic bottles of beverages and soft drinks. Participants received reusable gifts (ashtrays, bottles and silicone straws) financed by the Environmental Fund under the Sê-lo Verde program in return for their bottles.
The actions are in line with the general policy and objectives of the European Union in the field of waste management, such as the recycling target for packaging waste and the European Plastics Strategy, which stipulates that all plastic packaging placed on the market in the European Union should be reusable or easily recyclable by 2030 (Regulation No. 202/2019 of July 3rd).
Also, according to this Regulation, plastic bottles and beverage bottles as single-use plastic products should be subject to deposit systems or other measures that have a direct positive impact on the collection rate, thus on the quality of the collected materials.
Therefore, mechanisms to encourage the return of single-use plastic beverage containers will be introduced by December 31st of this year. The goal is to identify possible alternatives to maximize the recyclability of the collected materials.
In addition to the collection equipment, human recycling bins walked around to ease the desperate waste disposal in camping and food service areas.
Filipa Moita, Communications Officer, affirms that “these actions are important to promote the active participation of consumers and obtain materials of higher quality and recyclability. Novo Verde, with this Festival, has won the ideal framework to introduce such a solution in large-participation events!”