"What the law provides is that the treatment and recycling system is subsidised by all stakeholders. Of course, the end customer has a stake, but so do the producers", said the president of AMP, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues (PS).

The mayor of Gaia was also speaking at the end of the meeting of the Metropolitan Council of Porto, which he presides over, which brings together the 17 municipalities of the AMP, explaining that "the large producers of glass, paper, plastic are not paying anything, and the end customer is you, you are paying twice", when you buy products and when you pay the waste bill monthly.

Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues spoke about the successive postponement of the entry into force of new compensation amounts for waste management systems, questioning "why".

"It doesn't have to be due to lack of time. I think that one of these days we need to stop and say that everyone needs to assume their responsibilities. The environmental issue is not just the prerogative of ordinary citizens, it has to be everyone's ", he defended.

During the mayors' meeting, the vice-president of the Porto Chamber, Filipe Araújo (independent), recalled that the law, transposed from a European directive, "attributes responsibility to the producer for paying for the entire system of collecting and treating packaging in Portugal".

"At this moment, according to the law, the expanded responsibility of the producer is illegally supported by the municipalities", he denounced.

According to Filipe Araújo, the law has not been complied with since 2017, which has already caused more than 50 million euros in losses to the municipalities of Lipor (Espinho, Gondomar, Maia, Matosinhos, Porto, Póvoa de Varzim, Valongo and Vila do Conde).

"The most important thing is that the consumer pays twice: he pays when he buys the packaging and pays again when he pays the waste fee. This is absolutely unacceptable", he stressed, guaranteeing that Porto has "been drawing the attention of entities for several years for this problem."