Novo Verde, on the International Day of Recycling, draws a positive balance of its four years of activity, in which the company can already boast more than 120,500 tons of packaging waste collected separately.
From the first year of activity 2017 to 2020, Novo Verde has more than doubled the volumes collected, with a collective record of 39,617 tons of waste in 2020. Despite the pandemic, the statistics show an overall increase of 15% in the collection from 2019 to 2020, with a focus on recycling paper/cardboard (+ 55.3%) and aluminium (+ 10.1%).
Ricardo Neto, president of Novo Verde, says that “these results show that not even the consecutive restrictions have deterred the Portuguese from increasing recycling, and have shown that the Integrated Packaging Waste Management System (IPWMS) has always maintained its operation. This ensures a separate collection and makes it possible to give a new life to so many materials. The growth in these four years fills us with great joy, as we conclude that the effort to promote competition in a sector where it did not exist has brought only benefits to the various actors of the IPWMS.
We are motivated to continue promoting actions to activate or reinforce sustainable behaviours that lead to a separate collection of packaging, increasing the quantity and quality of recycled materials and making the IPWMS increasingly efficient”.
Novo Verde has increasingly invested in awareness and education campaigns among the population to foster the separate collection of packaging waste. For example, as recently as 2021, in collaboration with the EDP Foundation, the “Earth Bits – Feel the Planet” exhibition opened in Maat, encouraging visitors to think about the climate emergency. Also in April, the initiative “Mafra Reciclar a Valer +” was launched, a project funded by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and involving Mafra City Council, Tratolixo and other entities, with the aim of rewarding consumers for discarding PET and aluminium packaging. Moreover, Novo Verde is one of the main sponsors of the Water World Forum For Life event, which will be held for the first time in Portugal in the first days of June and in which the compliance schemes will be present with collection and awareness activities.
Novo Verde continues to focus on the protection of water, especially the oceans and is preparing a major initiative on Portuguese beaches that will consist of litter collection activities on the beach and awareness activities for the younger ones. The action, aimed primarily at schools, will be carried out on 30 beaches from the north to the south of the country and will also be open to the general public.
These are just some of the initiatives that Novo Verde has promoted recently to get more people to participate in this journey of sustainability for our planet.