As a result of the increasing importance in quantitative terms, packaging is considered a specific waste stream, with its management being carried out in a differentiated way, through the creation of specific legislation, which introduces a co-responsibility for all stakeholders in the packaging life cycle.
The scope of packaging waste includes packaging from the municipal waste stream and packaging from the non-municipal waste stream, in this case, industrial and non-reusable packaging.
The municipal packaging waste stream is managed by separate collection, through voluntary deposition systems or door-to-door collection, as well as by the sorting of packaging waste that is withdrawn through infrastructures receiving waste from undifferentiated collection. These circuits are provided by the management entities, Sociedade Ponto Verde (SPV) and Novo Verde, in articulation with the multi-municipal and inter-municipal systems of waste management.
"Recycling" means any recovery operation, including the reprocessing of organic materials, by which the constituent materials of waste are again transformed in products, materials or substances for their original purpose or for other purposes but which do not include energy recovery or reprocessing of materials that should be used as fuel or in filling operations.
In recycling, as in packaging waste production, all wastes from the municipal waste stream are included, accounting for separately collected waste as well as packaging waste withdrawn through infrastructures receiving waste from undifferentiated collection.
The remaining quantities of packaging waste come from the non-municipal waste stream, where the responsibility for sending them for recycling lies with the producers of the waste itself, through waste management operators contracted and licensed for that purpose.
It is important to highlight that there are other packaging waste management circuits, namely VALORMED, which collects waste packaging of medical products, and SIGERU which collects packaging waste from plant protection products, whose contribution to the total quantity is negligible, but whose role in the diversion of packaging waste currently or previously containing products considered hazardous from the municipal circuit is essential.
This fact sheet concerns mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions of Madeira and Azores and shall be updated on an annual basis.