Teams from Porto Ambiente take on more than 12.600 environmental awareness campaigns

Established in 2019, Porto Ambiente’s environmental awareness pioneering service, with teams which identify infringements related to the violation of the rules of deposition and conditioning of waste, ditching waste on public roads, amongst others, has already taken on, since its foundation and up until now, more than 12.600 campaigns, including six thousand visits to commercial establishments in the city.

The goal for these campaigns is centred around awareness, alerting the locals to adopt good practices, and offering, in situations where infringements are detected, the option to attend sessions of environmental training, instead of the automatic opening of the respective administrative offence. These sessions mostly aim to avoid new infringements, informing the citizens about the existence of rules, concerning the management of urban waste and cleaning, through the disclosure of the Regulamento de Serviço de Gestão de Resíduos Urbanos e Limpeza do Espaço Público no Município do Porto.

The numbers are expressive, and only in the first semester of 2023, 1.600 awareness campaigns, 156 training hours, counting with the participation of circa 172 students, from 35 establishments of the city, were registered. Only in 2022 more than 1.700 training sessions, 289 hours of training, 387 students in 100 establishments. In total, since 2021, more than 802 hours of training were given to 700 students.

The evolution from a previously sanctioning model to a more pedagogical and preventive model, has had positive results in behavioural changes, and, ultimately, in the compliance of the regulations.

Consequence of this commitment, the number of administrative offences has fallen in 82% since 2019, which shows that the establishments are more conscious of the importance of these themes and opt for an approach that privileges training their staff.

After concluding these sessions, the work continues, through contacting and close monitoring, as a way of verifying the changes applied by the establishments, which normally result in significant improvements in the procedures for management of urban waste from these establishments.