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DRAFT RESOLUTION NO. 268 /X

IT RECOMMENDS THE GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE THE REDUCTION OF SACKS

OF PLASTIC

The waste policy in Portugal, theoretically based on the principle of 3R's

-Reduce, Reuse and Recycle-met in recent years developments

considerable in the area of the last R-the Recycling-mainly because

there was a need to implement a practically non-existent process

for about 20 years in our country.

However, the still timid advancement of Recycling (if we take stock between

waste that arrives to be effectively recycled and targets

respectively established), was not, unfortunately, minimally

accompanied by measures in the area of the first two R's, which, incidentally, should

have been deemed to be given priority in the optics of a really bettered policy

in reducing waste, saving energy and raw materials and reducing impacts

environmental.

'The Greens' have, over the years, drawn attention to this fact

looking to submit proposals that go in the direction of effective reduction of

production and use of ephemeral goods in their use and permanent (on the scale

of a human life) in the environment constituting a heavy problem and

environmental liability, of which the most recent example was the Draft Law

nº205/X/1 which proposed measures for the reduction of packaging and waste from

packaging presented in 2007.

The plastic bags, specifically those consumed and used on a daily basis in the

acquisition of goods in commercial establishments, morally in the large

surfaces, constitute a part, non-dispatching, of the problem of waste

in our country, as a little all over the western world where impervie a

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massified consumption system, ephemeral and non-sustainable by obeying more

to the economic rationality of profit and competitiveness than to its

ecological sustainability.

On average, conventional shopping plastic bags, made from

petroleum derivatives (high-density polyethylene), which represent two thousand

tons offered every year by the supermarkets, with trend to

increase, are used for 12, but take hundreds of years to

decompose, causing negative impacts to different levels in the environment.

At the European level, the Directive 94 /62/CE (revised by the Directive 2004 /12/CE),

known as the directive-packaging, came to determine recycling targets:

by 2011, 22.5% of plastics should be recycled. Unfortunately, according to

with the data of the Waste Institute, at the end of 2005 Portugal was far away

to meet the recycling targets set out in Directives or in the own

PERSU (Strategic Plan of Urban Solid Waste), presenting the

plastic the worst results (face to glass and paper) with only 11% of the total

placed on the market.

In Portugal, according to Decree-Law No 366-A/97, all packaging

not reusable placed on the market must have a markup that informs

the consumer that the Waste Management System of Packaging ensures

your correct forwarding for valorisation or recycling.

In our country, the Integrated Waste Management System of Packaging

(SIGRE) is financed by the packers / importers who pay a given

value by packaging-as is the case with plastic bags-which put

in the market, thus transferring to the Green Point Society a

liability for the management and final destination of the packaging used, while

residue.

But the overwhelming majority of plastic bags don't even get into the row

of recycling, as the consumer does not arrive to deposit them in an ecoponto

nor to deliver in a any other collection system for recycling. A

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of the causes, invariably pointed out, relates to the inadequacies of the

own collection systems, among others.

Some large surfaces decided to start charging for the bags of

plastic that they put at the disposal in the payment boxes. It was also

aventada, in the latter we have, the possibility of charging a fee for

each plastic bag. In either case, the idea consists only of

pass more costs on to consumers and put a price on pollution

or in environmentally uncorrect behaviors what by themselves

solves the problem.

In France, French MPs in Parliament, decided in October to

2005, unanimously, prohibit up to 2010 a marketing and distribution of

bags and packaging of non-biodegradable plastic in French territory, a

measure that has evoked critical reactions from various industrialists and from a

consumer association what led to that, in the end, and after the

intervention of the Senate, if applied only to plastic bags.

Some industry has been trying to circumvent this problem by proposing solutions

innovative technology in the sense of trying to make the bag more innocuous

plastic in the environment. It should be pointed out however that some methods

initially introduced to make biodegradable the plastic bags biodegradable,

consist only of the addition of special additives, which only potentiate the

its degradation in smaller polymer chains, de facto reducing the

visual pollution but persisting the risk of environmental contamination.

In the meantime, there are already plastic bags made from alternative sources to the

derivatives of oil, often designated as bioplastics. That's the case

of the use of the starch (of cereals, specifically maize, and potato). The use of

bioplastics in shopping bags knows today a certain expansion that if

may come to speed in the coming times.

In Portugal there is already a Platform for Research, Development and

Innovation in Polymers of Renewable Sources. One of the guidelines is

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precisely the use of waste from agriculture and industries, notably

agrofood, in the case of starch, for the promotion of new bioplastics.

In Portuguese authorities there are also cases of good practice. There was already the

promotion, with campaigns, distribution and use of biodegradable bags and

compostable.

However, it matters to go further and take action that, by always privileging the

reduction of the consumption and use of short-lived goods and the reuse of goods

with long lifespan, in the face of the production of new fast-moving consumer goods

even if with recourse to renewable raw materials, entirely

biodegradable, or with recourse to recycling, contribute to solving the

problem of massive production of waste in modern societies.

Thus, under the applicable constitutional and regimental provisions, the

Assembly of the Republic, on the proposal of the Parliamentary Group "The Greens",

recommends to the Government:

a) That promotes, since already and until 2013, awareness campaigns to the

consumer aiming at the reduction and cessation of the use of plastic bags from

conventional purchases and their replacement with reusable bags such as the

traditional alcoffers, cloth bags or troleys;

b) That promote, from already and until 2013, to the large surfaces

commercials the development of strategies for the reduction of the use of

conventional shopping plastic bags, such as the creation of conditions

to make it easier and apetable the use of reusable bags,

made available or not by the surfaces, specifically through a

symbolic discount on the invoice for purchases to whom it is to take

conventional plastic bags;

c) The compulsion of conventional plastic bags condo

message alerting to negative environmental and energy impacts

of the same and sensitizing to your replacement by bags

reusable;

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d) To create awards and other financial or tax incentives, for promotion

of the development of plastics production technologies (and new

substituted materials) with recourse to renewable sources (thus excluding the

recourse to petroleum derivatives), which involve preferentially as

raw material secondary products of agriculture, fisheries and industry, and that

have as one of the products resulting bags of plastic

biodegradable and compostable;

e) To create awards and other financial or tax incentives for the

authorities and other public entities responsible for management systems

of Municipal Solid Waste proceed to the progressive replacement, until

2013, of conventional garbage bags (made from derivatives of the

oil) by other fully biodegradable and compostable;

f) The ban, until 2013, of the use of plastic shopping bags no

fully biodegradable.

Palace of S. Bento, February 12, 2008.

The Deputies of "The Greens",

Heloísa Apollonian José Miguel Pacheco Gonçalves