Anticipating the mandatory implementation of selective collection of textiles in 2025, the municipality of Sintra - through a partnership between the Municipal Water and Sanitation Services (SMAS) and To Be Green, a spin-off of the University of Minho, where the textile and mask recycling and recovery project was born - extended the process to the entire municipality.

The expansion took place after a pilot experience in 2021 in four parishes and parish unions, where there was "a lot of acceptance of the project", explained to Lusa the director of SMAS, Carlos Vieira.

"We are always looking for new solutions that allow us, essentially, to increase selective collection and reduce undifferentiated waste", he said, justifying the partnership with To Be Green and also emphasizing that the "brand image" of its performance in the municipality, in the district of Lisbon, "involves anticipating" the mandatory legislation.

According to Carlos Vieira, the municipality anticipated "much earlier" the collection targets for bio-waste, which became mandatory on January 1st of this year, and also wanted to do so in the case of textiles "to adapt solutions to what is necessary".

"Some regulations regarding the issue of textiles are still lacking, but the goal is to try to implement projects that allow for the removal of textiles from undifferentiated [waste] and, thus, anticipate these targets and be prepared when the date arrives", he stressed.

António Dinis Marques, scientific mentor and CEO (executive director) of To Be Green, defines the project as "a complete solution for the recovery of textiles, particularly clothing at the end of its life, where disposal is not considered waste, but a potential waste of recovery to transform into others".

First, the clothes are delivered to a container, placed in schools or in parish councils, and are then selected at the collection center located in the Ouressa Business Park, Mem Martins.

Those that are in a condition to be used are photographed and inserted in the To Be Green application, where they can be exchanged for points (to acquire other pieces on this platform, like in a store), or are delivered to the Municipal Resource Bank or to a private social solidarity institution.

If the pieces are damaged, they are sent for recycling and transformed into new textile fibers (fabrics), which happens in the north of the country, after being sorted into "batches of the five main colors and jeans".

According to António Dinis Marques, the project, which is also present in other municipalities in the country, especially in the North region, has already removed "between 50 and 70 tons, approximately" from the landfill in the total of the area covered. In Sintra, the project "is still in a start-up phase, in the second year itself, now entering the phase of scaling up and disseminating, after the pilot project".

The mentor stressed the importance of reaching out to the youngest, and to that end, awareness-raising actions are carried out in schools to introduce the project, as was the case at Miguel Torga Secondary School, in Queluz.

"We want to reach young people a lot, the generations that are more engaged, more connected to the issue of sustainability, because these are audiences that are still very consumer-oriented, with some age groups having very, very high consumption of fashion products. That's where it starts", explained António Dinis Marques, emphasizing the need to "buy less, but buy with more quality, because it allows for a longer lifespan".

Eliane, 16, attended the training session and considered it important, especially because she recognized "that people usually buy a lot of clothes and, many times, it is not necessary". She learned that "it is always good to recycle instead of leaving it around".

Like her colleague Evelyn, also 16, she will take the opportunity to install the application on her mobile phone to exchange clothes that she says she has at home and does not use.

"I learned that we can give new life to clothes that we no longer use or that do not fit us and also that there are several possibilities to transform pants, a bag or a smock, things like that", said the young woman, who considered this a "good way to reduce several damages, such as piles of clothes in the trash".

For Sandra Oliveira, a teacher and coordinator of the Eco Schools project, the different class "will leave seeds" in the young people and an "alert to the problem of textiles".

"I don't know very well if they are aware that excessive buying, excessive consumption, then results in excessive waste, and therefore, at least they were alerted, [knowing] that there are other solutions besides undifferentiated waste for textiles", she stressed.

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