One of our favorite aspects of traveling to other places is to find out how people in those places handle the basics of life. You know, like going to the grocery store or how they handle mail, and often, some of the most fascinating things is to observe how people manage trash service. It’s something we all have to deal with and how we do so is truly interesting.
In the States, trash service varies from municipality to municipality. Even neighboring cities will handle things fairly differently. Some places require strict recycled item separation and accept yard waste and the next city over won’t even have recycling.
In Portugal, residents handle trash in a few different ways. It varies primarily based on whether you live in an urban or rural area. In most rural locations and even some areas of the city, you can have trash bins at your home or your apartment building. Trash collectors work in a specific area a few times a week. This work happens most often late at night so roads are clearer and fewer people are disturbed by the inevitable, noise.
Eco-Point Bins
We’re most fascinated with what they call the eco-point. It’s a gathering place for all sorts of rubbish.
There’s a spot for your regular household rubbish along with a receptacle for paper, one for metal and plastic, and one for glass. Eco-point bins are color coded.
Glass is green, metal or plastic go in the yellow bin, paper goes in the blue bins, and everything else goes into the black waste bin. These color codes correspond to indicators on the packaging to help people put recyclable materials in the correct bin. In some places, you can even recycle your coffee pucks and batteries.
There are also receptacles for CDs, clothes and shoe donations. It’s an efficient and effective method of managing trash service.
Eco-Point Design
In Lisbon, we’re very lucky to live near somewhat fancy eco-points. They’re basically holes in the ground with small metal receptacles at the top. You pull open the lid at the top and toss your trash in. You don’t have to worry about pests or people going through your trash. In other parts of the city or other cities like Porto, they are large bins above ground.
There will be a lineup of a bunch of large above-ground containers that collect all of these things. Again, bins are color-coded with green, blue, red, and yellow, which corresponds to the type of refuse they collect.
Organic Materials
Some restaurants collect organic materials and these bins are usually brown. In order to deposit personal household organic materials, you have to enroll in a special program. You must take a class to learn more about how to recycle your food waste appropriately. These classes teach which containers to put organic materials into, how they should be bundled, and allow you to gain access to special neighborhood bins. Organic bins are usually kept locked and you can only get the key if you pass the class. They take this very seriously.
One thing we, initially, got very mixed up about is cooking oil collection bins. We originally thought they were for all types of food since there’s a picture of a fish on the outside. However, once we learned a little more Portuguese, we realized it was definitely just for depositing cooking oil so it doesn’t clog up the waste system.
Collecting the Trash
We’ve been lucky enough to watch the folks that work for the municipality as trash collectors picking up the trash. It’s actually really cool and mechanized. Basically, these big trucks with two workers come by. The trucks are equipped with a crane arm for lifting the below-ground receptacles to be emptied. They connect the power cord from the truck to the plug near the container and then the whole thing is lifted up into the air. Next, workers dump the trash into the truck in the correct receptacle.
Periodically they’ll come by and thoroughly scrub and wash the trash area inside and out so it doesn’t get nasty.
Keeping it Clean
When we’re on our walks, we’ve noticed that the caretakers of large apartment buildings also maintain the trash bins. Weekly they give them a thorough scrub with soap and water. It feels like these improvements are a kind of recent development, but they seem to be maintaining them very well. Obviously, the city is invested in not having a ton of overflowing trash and keeping the streets free from pests and debris.
Street Cleaners
When we first arrived in Lisbon, bars and restaurants had just begun to re-open after the pandemic lockdowns. We were staying in an Airbnb in the center of town smack dab in the middle of the party area. Every night, there was a festa going on.
Every morning we’d walk the dog to find the streets just absolutely trashed. As a result of the previous night’s parties, roads and sidewalks were covered in rubbish, beer cans, food wrappers. Basically, the flotsam and jetsam of a good time.
Then, here come the workers very, very early between seven or eight in the morning. A whole team of them would clean up the streets together with brooms and shovels. They’d gather all the garbage together and dump it into larger trash bins then they would hose everything down. They’d also empty all of the trash cans along the street making them ready for the night’s festivities once again.
This same, basic concept is extended to all areas of the city with neighborhood cleaners. These city employees roam the parks and streets with a small cart with a broom, dustpan, and bin for collecting rubbish and dead leaves. They keep the area nice and tidy.
It’s been really interesting to see how the trash service is handled in Portugal. We’ve seen it done similarly in other countries and can’t wait to continue our informal observations on how people in different areas tackle the same problems.