Azores with pilot project to collect and recycle used coffee capsules - Communication

Secretaria Regional do Ambiente e Ação Climática

The Regional Secretary for the Environment and Climate Action, Alonso Miguel, chaired the presentation and official launch of the pilot project to collect and recycle used coffee capsules in the Region, held in Ponta Delgada, symbolically celebrating International Recycling Day, which is marked on Saturday, May 17.

Alonso Miguel explained that “this project will be implemented in the 19 municipalities of the Region, in collaboration between the Regional Government, municipalities and RECAPS; the latter comprises six coffee production companies, owners of 14 brands, and the Industrial and Commercial Association of Coffee."

According to the Regional Secretary, "the project will run for five years, representing an investment of about 60 thousand Euros by the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and Climate Action. It will make 130 personalised containers available, distributed throughout the Region's municipalities, and provide financial compensation to support waste management operators for the costs incurred with transporting the capsules to final recycling destinations outside the Region."

Alonso Miguel emphasised that "the project is mainly intended to remove this type of waste from the undifferentiated route as, due to its characteristics, namely its shape and small size, it often gets lost in transport and escapes sorting systems, in addition to having a high potential for contamination in the composting process arising from mechanical and biological processing systems."

The Regional Secretary for the Environment emphasised that ‘the implementation of this project, which has now been presented, corresponds to one of the measures set out in the recently published Agenda for the Circular Economy of the Azores. It responds to different challenges, firstly by promoting segregation at source, an essential aspect for guaranteeing the quality and viability of recycling, and secondly by anticipating the new European requirements, which stipulate that capsules should be classified as packaging, with compulsory separate collection."

He explained that "this initiative also fills a gap, since, according to the legislation in force in the Region, the retail, accommodation and catering sectors are already required to separate this type of waste, and until now there was no specific route to ensure it was sent for recycling."

The Regional Secretary took the opportunity to recall some of the investments already made by the Regional Government in terms of waste prevention and management. He highlighted "the restructuring of the Waste Processing Centres on the islands of Faial, Pico, Graciosa, São Jorge, Flores and Santa Maria, to adapt to the process of selective collection of bio-waste, which represented an investment of about 6.1 million euros by the Government." He also mentioned the "doubling of the annual investment allocated to the Eco-Parish Programme to one million Euros, enabling our parish councils to clean up public spaces, including streams and the coastline, with the removal and forwarding of waste to the appropriate destination."  

The government official that a "new procedure was recently launched to continue the recovery and modernisation interventions at the Region's Waste Processing Centres, to improve the recycling processes, with the installation of new sorting lines in the Pico, Graciosa, São Jorge, Santa Maria and Faial infrastructures, an overall investment of about three million Euros.

He concluded: "With all these investments, a strong commitment to environmental education and awareness, the collaboration and coordination between the competent bodies, local authorities, waste management operators, schools and other organisations, and the contribution of society in general and of each Azorean, we have ensured a positive course in the Region as far as waste management is concerned. These efforts have resulted in a 17% increase in recycling over the last two years in the Azores."