Moedas calls for review of Lisbon's Volta bottle deposit scheme over drug problems

Lisbon mayor takes the scheme to Brussels

Carlos Moedas, mayor of Lisbon and vice-president of the European Committee of the Regions, pressed for changes to the Volta scheme in Brussels on Wednesday, 14 October 2026. The scheme refunds 10 cents for each plastic bottle returned at collection points. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Committee's plenary session, he said the system is causing "serious social problems" in the Portuguese capital. On Tuesday, 13 October, he had already called the results of the scheme "terrible" in his speech to the plenary. A former European commissioner, Moedas said he had shown the Commission videos and photographs of what is happening in Lisbon.

1. Oct 13, 2026Moedas calls the scheme's results terrible in his plenary speech at the Committee of the Regions
2. Oct 14, 2026Moedas meets Commissioner Jessika Roswall, who agrees to promote a technical meeting

Good intent, poor implementation

Moedas said the policy is sound in principle but has been applied badly.

The intention of the policy is good, but then the implementation is being very bad.

He said Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall, whose title covers water resilience and circular economy, responded by agreeing to promote a technical meeting between the Commission, the Portuguese government and the city of Lisbon. Moedas also favours an approach like the one in France, where the system has been suspended in some cities and applied with flexibility. He said each municipality should be able to decide how the scheme applies locally, and admitted he would like to suspend it in the capital. He added that housing is the biggest challenge facing cities, but that Volta also deserves attention in Brussels.

Drug treatment and rising social problems

Moedas said reports he had received show people in drug addiction programmes who left treatment to collect bottles and use the money to buy drugs again. He described a person who leaves a programme to collect 10 cents from 200 or 300 bottles in order to return to drugs. In his account, the social problems were already present but were being treated, and the scheme is making them grow. He also said social problems have increased for many reasons, one of them the amount of drugs beginning to enter through Portugal.

Objections from Almada and Matosinhos

Moedas acknowledged that the only dissenting voice in the Lisbon metropolitan discussion came from Almada mayor Inês Medeiros. Speaking to TSF in Brussels, she said the region's landfills are overloaded and that within a year or two there may be nowhere to put waste. She pointed to a sharp rise in waste production and said the regional system is at its limit, adding that privatisations have been problematic in some cases, especially on the Setúbal Peninsula.

In conscience, I cannot consider the Volta issue a priority in waste policy.

Medeiros said she sees the Volta problem as resting on a social and public health problem. Matosinhos mayor Luísa Salgueiro, also in Brussels, said she sees no social drama in the deposit and refund system.

What comes next

The technical meeting has been promised, but the reports give no date for it. No decision to suspend the scheme in Lisbon has been reported. Moedas has framed his request as a search for solutions to the difficulties identified, with the Commission, the Portuguese government and Lisbon city council at the table.