“There is a huge problem with waste management on São Miguel, with around 70 percent of waste still being deposited in landfills and this is truly unacceptable and cannot happen. Therefore, it is really necessary to find an urgent solution”, said Alonso Miguel.

The governor was responding to the BE parliamentary leader, António Lima, who questioned him about the construction of an incinerator on the island of São Miguel.

The Bloquista MP said that the Plan and Budget for 2021 presents a “significant gap”, since “nothing is said by the government to prevent” the construction of the incinerator.

Alonso Miguel stressed that the initiative to build an energy recovery plant in São Miguel is the responsibility of the company Musami and the island’s Association of Municipalities (AMISM).

According to the regional secretary, if the understanding of these two organisations is to build “an energy recovery plant in São Miguel, with mechanical and biological treatment upstream”, the Regional Government “should obviously not interfere in the legitimate competencies of the municipalities”.

CDS-PP parliamentarian Rui Martins accused the BE of “political chicanery” for bringing up the issue of the incinerator construction.

The process of building the São Miguel Energy Recovery Plant has generated controversy, starting with the contestation of civic and environmental movements, which say that an incinerator of the projected size on the island of São Miguel will put the island, and consequently the archipelago, far from the European recycling targets.