Waste management is one of Portugal’s biggest challenges for the coming year, according to environmental organisation Quercus, which considers the deposit and refund system for drink packaging to be “an important step”.
In a statement on the environmental balance and expectations for 2026, Quercus warns that the recycling rate in Portugal is 18 percentage points below the 55% target set for 2025, that the circular economy is the “weak point of environmental policy” and that more than half of waste continues to be deposited in landfills, most of which are at full capacity.
That is why the deposit and refund system, one of Quercus’ demands, which is due to start in April, is considered by the association to be “an important step”.
The deposit and refund system is a scheme whereby consumers pay a deposit when purchasing drink packaging, and recover it when they return the empty packaging to 2,500 machines that will be in supermarkets and hypermarkets, Quercus points out, also noting that by 31 July, Portugal must transpose the Right to Repair Directive, a legal instrument for reducing waste production by promoting measures to increase the useful life of consumer goods.
Also important in 2026 will be the completion of the National Nature Restoration Plan and the entry into force in January of the High Seas Treaty to protect marine biodiversity, the statement said, which also pointed out the importance of continuing to monitor and mobilise society in relation to the placing of pesticides on the European market, after the European Commission partially backed down on a very damaging proposal on the matter.
The regulation of new genetically modified organisms and a conference in Colombia in April on a roadmap for the elimination of fossil fuels (not included in the latest UN climate change conference, COP30, in Brazil) will be other important moments in environmental terms, according to Quercus.
In its statement, the organisation also lists what it considers to be the best and worst environmental events of this year, highlighting last summer’s major fires as one of the worst moments. Also on the negative list is the government’s water strategy presented in March, which instead of ensuring efficient water management focuses on an “unsustainable agricultural model, particularly intensive irrigation”. Also bad is the weakening of European environmental legislation, the Commission’s so-called “environmental omnibus”.
As positive developments in 2025, Quercus highlights the embargo on the Pisão dam, a project challenged in court by four environmental organisations, the mobilisation of civil society against photovoltaic megaprojects, and the creation of the “Blue Forest – Ecological Restoration of Marine Meadows” programme.