Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In June 2000 Lipor introduced a dedicated telephone service Ecofone, in which waste-holders
can telephone Lipor to make an appointment to collect recyclables (paper/card, glass,
plastic and metal packaging). Initially, this system was intended to household and small
retailers. However, Lipor has since extended it to schools and plans to extend it further to
serve industry.
In Portugal, there is no specific law on waste plastics. The legal obligations come from the
application of the European Directive on packaging waste. The targeted audiences are:
service and commerce (advertising agencies, public offices, banks, pharmacies copy
centres, restaurants, hotels, etc)
schools and teaching institutions
households
The collection of recyclable materials is made by teams, whose staff are easily identified.
They use light commercial cars in order to ensure good mobility in the citys busy streets. The
phone service works from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm, from Monday to Saturday. Calls made
outside this schedule are recorded. Collections are made between 7:00 am and 8:00 pm,
Monday to Saturday.
Lipor also supplies free plastic bags for the selective collection of materials; yellow for metal
an plastic packaging, green for glass packaging and blue for paper and card.
One incentive to use the Ecofone service is that it is free, in comparison with an incineration
fee of 75/t. Once materials are collected, they are taken to Lipors sorting plant where
they are processed and baled for sale. Ecofone carries out around 2,000 collections monthly,
from which about 75 per cent are from services and commercial stores. Total monthly
collection amount to around 100 t, of which approximately 50 per cent is paper/cardboard,
35 per cent is glass, 9 per cent is plastics and 6 per cent is metal packaging. The plastics
stream is principally PET bottles and PE films, the percentage split of which is around 40:60.
The quality of the material collected by the Ecofone service is excellent. The collection costs
associated with the Ecofone Project are around 140/t , with sorting costs at around 50/t.
The overall cost of the communication campaign was 299,000, with the support of the
Portuguese Green Dot Society contributing 50 per cent.
A specific communication campaign was developed to encourage participation in this service.
This was aimed at consumers, small commerce and service organisations, as well as
reinforcing several other environmental awareness actions.
The strategy, including the services name, is based on the image of a phone and the act of
making a phone call simple, comfortable and fast. Lipor has opted for a system that has a
high visibility, a strong public presence (buses, outdoor advertisements), and which is
informative (direct mailing), accessible (radio, press) and easily comprehensible.
The communication campaign started with the outdoor communication, following up with
the distribution of a generic mailing to all the residents services and shops of the town of Porto.
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