Short Stories

Saturday, 26th September 2020 Germany has been using a highly successful bottle deposit system since 2003 to help cut down on plastic waste and increase recycling rates. A line of people in front of a deposit machine in a supermarket is perfectly normal with customers inserting their glass bottles, plastic bottles or beer crates before a receipt is printed, allowing them to recoup their money at the checkout. Currently, every glass bottle carries an eight cent charge while plastic ones are 25 cents. While the scheme has had the side effect of pushing disadvantaged members of society to root through …

Saturday, 19 th September 2020 Let’s get this straight! Among the many items on the news agenda this week, there were two that stood out in particular. Tourism restrictions due to the pandemic are having their first positive effects on the climate. Representatives of Porto’s Association of Coach Companies (ARP) pointed out, in a press release, that their business depends on group activities, excursions, tourist visits, coach trips and transfers to hotels and the airport. There are more than 2,000 coaches and 2,500 drivers that have been left idle over the past 180 days, and are likely to remain so. …

Saturday 12 th September 2020 Yesterday the ECO123 team founded the new cooperative ESGRAVATADOURO CRL. The aim of this organisation is to offer individuals a simple and effective solution to enable them to become active against climate change. To this end, the KYOTO climate protection platform has been developed, where users can find out about their possibilities of influencing climate change and becoming directly active. In order to ensure that the effects of climate change that are already underway can be controlled for future generations and that the basis of human life continues to exist, it is necessary to rethink …

Saturday 29th August 2020 Is there life after death? Heike Lange probably knows the answer now. It’s painful. This is the second person who’s close to me and who, after going into hospital, without being diagnosed as having a heart attack that wasn’t diagnosed , ended up dying of a second heart attack at home. The doctors who work in this sick health system, sent her home with a handful of pills because they are either overworked or incompetent. One thing is certain: life before death, in Portugal, seems to becoming less and less healthy. It was the forest fire …

Saturday, 22nd August 2020 Good morning, everyone! It’s true, Facebook’s a real devil sometimes, as it warns people when it’s our birthday. 61 – I have lived more than half of my life. I look back and leave an immense trail of gratitude for my life, with no regrets and the certainty that this is just a passage to another dimension, that life and death are two sides of the same coin. I have just two deep wishes: My wish in this life is that I shall live to see the collapse of unbridled and brutal capitalism and witness the …

Saturday the 15th August 2020 If the weather is not too hot, the cabbages for Christmas should be planted now in August and the ground prepared for sowing and planting in autumn. It’s also a good time for drying fruit (figs) and vegetables (tomatoes). Watering the young trees well and covering the land around them with straw, mulch or dry grass… It was at the beginning of this year that the agroforestry almanac known as Plantei.eu started in Montemor-o-Novo. Its seed was the desire to disseminate knowledge and useful information about sustainable agricultural and forestry practices. Available both in paper …

Saturday, 8 th August 2020 Madam President of the EU Commission, Dr. Ursula von der Leyen. At the beginning of the week, journalists were presented with a press release with information relating to both Portugal and Europe, which contained such keywords as Green Deal, investments, sustainability, forest fires, reforestation, economics, ecology, eucalyptus, monocultures, cellulose and paper, among others.  An Investment Plan for Europe? I read in this press release that the European Investment Bank (EIB) will lend the Navigator Company SA (Setúbal) exactly 27.5 million euros for the purchase of a new paper machine (total cost 55 million euros), which …

Saturday, July the 25th, 2020 Local government is an art. It’s even a university discipline. But this does not guarantee that good political measures will be put in place. Basically, it’s not enough to have talent, you have to be honest and caring and have enough character to make sustainable decisions independently. Decisions that will be useful for the future of a village or a town. The art of politics bears fruit when it succeeds in increasing the wealth of a region. When a mayor cannot stand for re-election after three terms in office and is forced to retire, receiving …