Sciaena launches the campaign “Há mar e mar, há usar e recuperar” for the implementation of a packaging deposit return system in Portugal
31 de July, 2020
Today in Peniche we launched the campaign “Há mar e mar, há usar e recuperar” together with the public petition “For the health of our oceans, demand a deposit return system!”, with the objective of implementing a deposit return system for packaging in Portugal as soon as possible, for the health of our oceans.
The campaign started this Friday at 11AM at Baleal beach and it was attended by several people, entities and NGOs, such as Tara Recuperável, MARMEU, Mar à deriva, Sea Sheperd, TheTrashTraveler, Politécnico de Leiria and the Dutch surfer and environmental activist Merjin Tinga – The Plastic Soup Surfer.
Renata Fleck from Sciaena reinforced the need for Portugal to implement a deposit return system and said that “Portugal has got to have a deposit system for all beverage packages operating in January 2022, so that there is no more packaging in our oceans”.
According to Merjin Tinga, the deposit system will happen, European legislation is clear, but it is unwise to wait for the EU, as it is already known that a deposit system can solve this problem in a short or medium timeline. Portugal can make a difference by approving a comprehensive deposit system that includes all types of beverage packaging, as the Netherlands has just done.
“It is necessary to have a deposit system for all packaging so that 40 years from now, we will stop finding packaging buried on our beaches, similar to what we found in Peniche in the last few weeks,” said Manuel Nascimento from the NGO Mar à deriva.
Daniel Gomes, from Tara Recuperável, on the other hand, one of the first to fight for the implementation of a deposit system in Portugal, believes that “more important than cleaning the sea is to prevent the litter from getting there and the deposit system is the solution for that”.
Before the beginning of the event, 3 people collected litter for about 30 minutes near the fort of Peniche and 93 glass bottles were collected. The main brands found were Argus, Sagres and Super Bock, 35 cans of drinks (Coca-cola, 7up and Kingscan), 6 Tetra Pak packs, 5 yogurt packs and 13 plastic bottles (mostly bottles of water).
Over the next few months, Sciaena will organize, with a wide network of partners and supporters, a series of events and actions to publicize the campaign and to appeal to all Portuguese people to sign the petition that is already online on our website.