By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Sep 11 2006 (IPS)

Portugal recycles less of its chemical waste than any of the other 15 countries that were members of the European Union (EU) prior to April 2004, according to a recent report by the British Institute for Public Policy Research.

This new black mark against Portugal has caused indignation among environmentalists. Quercus, the country’s leading environmental organisation, had already shown profound annoyance with the government on Sep. 1, when it walked out of the Comissão de Acompanhamento Ambiental (Environmental Monitoring Commission, CAA) on which it served along with SECIL-Outao, a cement factory located in the Arrábida Natural Park, on the outskirts of Lisbon.

Quercus explained that it had ceased to participate in the CAA, set up by the Environment ministry, because the SECIL-Outao company was guilty of a “breach of trust.” The company has a concession to burn dangerous industrial wastes, but not without informing the CAA about every decision concerning co-incineration.

The EU defines “co-incineration” plants as facilities whose main purpose is to produce energy or material products and which use waste as a regular or additional fuel, this waste being thermally treated for the purpose of disposal.

Local environmentalists and mayors argue that the cement company is trying to evade compliance with EU environmental legislation.

EU laws oblige member countries to obey rules about incineration and co-incineration of both toxic and non-toxic wastes that may cause emissions of substances which pollute the air, water and soil and have harmful effects on human health.

The town councillors of Setúbal, Anunciada, Sao Simao and Sao Lourenço, all of which are located in the Arrabida hills, also left the Commission for the same reasons as the Quercus activists.

According to Rei Berkemeier, a Quercus expert, the organisation was prepared to remain part of the CAA if SECIL-Outao for its part agreed to carry out an environmental impact study before proceeding to co-incinerate hazardous industrial waste.

In addition, it was understood that the cement factory would not burn any products on the list of those that must be sent to specialised hazardous waste recycling and disposal centres (CIRVERs), including used oils and solvents.

The CIRVERs are still going through the licensing stage, and will not be operational until the beginning of 2008, but the Environment ministry promised that co-incineration would start this month.

The problem of the cement factory with regard to toxic waste is coupled with the lack of rubbish recycling in the country. According to the British Institute for Public Policy Research, Portugal took the last place in the EU in 2003 and 2004, when the bloc had 15 member countries. (On May 1, 2004, another 10 states joined the European bloc.)

The study, released last week, found that the Portuguese recycle only three percent of their waste, followed by Greece with eight percent, and the United Kingdom with 18 percent.

At the top of the list are the Netherlands, where 65 percent of waste is recycled, followed by Austria with 59 percent, and Germany with 58 percent.

The absence of recycling in Portugal has led to sharp criticism by environmentalists, especially as, according to the study, increasing the level of recycling would not be difficult. Among the EU countries, Portugal produces the second lowest amount of rubbish, at 434 kilograms per person. Only Greece, with one kilogram less per person, produces less waste.

Among the leaders in rubbish production are the Republic of Ireland, with 869 kilograms per person, followed by Denmark with 696, Luxembourg with 668, and Spain with 662 kilograms per person.

Quercus is raising its voice against the unilateral decision by SECIL-Outao to “incinerate tens of thousands of tons of hazardous industrial waste, including oils and solvents.”

The activists pointed out that last March, Environment Minister Francisco Nunes Correia promised that only a small proportion of toxic residues, not susceptible to treatment in the CIRVERs, would be burned at the cement factories.

At the time, Quercus warned the government about the problems that might ensue if wastes on the CIRVER list were incinerated. The harmful consequences included serious environmental risks if co-incineration were carried out before the hazardous wastes were treated to reduce their volume and risk factors.

Environmentalists are calling for “a proper management policy” to deal with the 250,000 tons per year of hazardous industrial waste. In order of priority, they suggest recycling 50,000 tons of lubricants and 15,000 tons of solvents, and storage and later delivery of the 185,000 tons remaining to the CIRVERs.

Isabel de Castro, a parliamentary deputy for Portugal’s Green Party until last month, told IPS that the problem is actually much bigger and more complicated, because it arises from the lack of an environmental policy caused by “the anaesthesised consciences of those in political power who are arrogant and ignorant,” and who have allowed “impunity to take root, which favours assaults on and degradation of the environment.”

“The continuing increase in the amount of waste, the lack of treatment, the dismantling and weakening of inspection capacity, the lack of political will and of a vision for the future, are symptoms of the non-existence of a strategy to change such a sombre and complacent reality,” De Castro concluded.

Co-incineration in Portugal was first proposed by the current socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates when he was minister of the environment in the administration of Antonio Guterres (1995-2002), now the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The conservative government which followed (2002-2004), led by José Manuel Durao Barroso, who is now president of the European Commission, dropped the idea and chose to build the CIVERs. When Socrates took office in April last year, the co-incineration project was resumed.

The differences between the present government and the environmentalists over co-incineration consist only in this: the activists accept the use of this procedure, but only after the CIRVERs are operational, and new environmental impact studies have been carried out.

SECIL-Outao, for its part, has petitioned the government to waive an environmental impact study on the co-incineration of oily bilge from fuel tanks, oils and solvents.

Everything now depends on the decision taken by the Socrates administration. Many years before reaching the apex of power, he showed considerable sensitivity to environmental issues.

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