The rule that changes everything: it is PACKAGING, not material
Ecopontos are for packaging, not for the material things are made of. That distinction is the one most people have never heard, and it causes most of the mistakes.
A broken plastic bucket is plastic, and does not go in the yellow bin, because it is not packaging. A broken decorative glass, or a vase, is glass, and does not go in the green one. A frying pan is metal and does not go in the yellow.
Once that clicks, you get most of the doubtful cases right: ask "did this wrap or contain a product?" before asking "what is it made of?".
Yellow: plastic and metal packaging
- Water, juice and detergent bottles
- Food and drink cans
- Beverage cartons: milk, juice, cream, tomato passata. These go in the YELLOW bin despite looking like card
- Polystyrene trays and pieces
- Plastic packaging bags and film
Blue: paper and card packaging
- Cardboard boxes, flattened
- Newspapers, magazines and writing paper
- Paper bags, including supermarket bread bags
- Envelopes and wrapping paper
- Used notebooks and folders
Green: glass packaging
- Glass bottles
- Jars and pots
- Without lids or metal caps: those go in the yellow bin
The most common mistakes
- Washing packaging first. It is not needed and wastes water. Just drain it
- Putting beverage cartons in the blue bin because they look like card. They are composite packaging and belong in the yellow
- Greasy paper, baking paper, metallic paper and used napkins in the blue bin. None is recyclable in that stream
- Plastic or glass objects that are not packaging (see the first section)
- Leaving cardboard boxes unflattened, which fills the bin at a quarter of its real capacity
What does not go in an ecoponto, and where it goes
- Batteries: dedicated collection points, common in supermarkets
- Electrical and electronic equipment: retailer take-back or dedicated collection points
- Light bulbs: separate collection, not the glass bin
- Used cooking oil: oleões
- Expired medicines: pharmacies
- Rubble, bulky items and green waste: ecocentro or a collection booked with the council
- When in doubt, Sociedade Ponto Verde answers on 210 102 480 or info@pontoverde.pt
When the bin itself is the problem
None of this helps if the ecoponto is full, broken or missing. And there is a consequence people overlook: a bin that overflows stops sorting anything, because everything left beside it goes to the mixed stream regardless of what it is.
If the ecoponto on your street is permanently full, that is not your problem to solve, it is a sizing or collection-frequency problem. Reporting once fixes the day; reporting the same point with dates over months is what supports a case for more capacity.
Sources
Do I need to wash packaging first?
No. Sociedade Ponto Verde is explicit: washing is not necessary, so as not to waste water. Drain what is left and put it out.
Milk carton, blue or yellow?
Yellow. Despite looking like card, it is multi-layer composite packaging and its stream is the yellow bin.
What about a broken plastic toy?
Not the ecoponto: it is not packaging. It goes in general waste or, if bulky, to the ecocentro.
Bottle caps?
Plastic caps can go in the yellow bin with the bottle. Metal caps from glass jars go in the yellow bin, not the green one.