Macário Correia takes office today as delegate director of the Algar company, with the ambitious goal of achieving "zero waste, tending to be". The former president of the Chamber of Faro embark on a new adventure, in an area that has always been dear to him, as a politician and citizen, the Environment.
"I want to make the Algarve cleaner, take from the streets and fields everything that can be used and insert it into a value chain," he said in an interview with Sul Informação. «Everything is used, to make new products or to create energy or gas. I want to make landfills, in the future, have no function. Today they are used to produce gas, but this is not the ideal situation”, he illustrated.
A day before assuming the management position of the Algarve company for the recovery and collection of solid waste (garbage and recycling), Macário Correia spoke with the Sul Informação and he said that he has the “perspective of carrying out a public service with great dedication to what is the environmental policy in the Algarve”.
«I want the recovery of raw materials, in the region, to be what is desired. In other words, that it meets the objectives of national and European policy in this area", which advocates the gradual move towards a situation in which all the waste we produce "has another function in the future".
This is achieved “with the collaboration of each family, schools and local authorities”. As of today, Algar's managing director believes that the company “must invest a lot in promoting people's civic spirit”, starting with schools, so that “children educate their parents”.
The Algarve's municipalities, which are Algar's partners and its main customers, also play an important role in this endeavor. «The collection and separation lines have to be increasingly efficient», even if for this it is necessary to invest in more collection points or in the renovation of the existing ones.
Also because there is a human dimension, behind the collection of garbage, which resents when the collection that is intended to be selective is not. “The most depressing thing is having to have people manually separate material that is sometimes putrefied, to separate the waste. If everyone did it at home, it would be easier and cheaper for everyone», he considered.
As for his choice to occupy the position, Macário Correia recalls the "symbiosis" between his political life that lasted 28 years, in which he was Secretary of State for the Environment and mayor of two Algarve Chambers and his connection to environmental protection associations , as he was “founder of GEOTA and other associations”.
"I believe I have the personal conditions to perform well in this position," he said.
Position in the Hubel company is left behind
“I will not continue in the position I used to occupy at Hubel. The performance of the two functions is incompatible. I was very pleased to work there, but I will not continue», said Macário Correia.
Known for being a man of action, the former mayor of Faro he did not stay put after having ceased his duties at the municipality and guarantees that he has not taken a vacation since then. After leaving public life, in September of last year, he accepted a challenge from the private sector, to be the representative of the Algarve company Hubel (water systems, agriculture and energy solutions) with local authorities.
Macário Correia wore the nightgown and traveled all over the country offering diagnostics and repairs to public water networks to different city councils.
The former Farense and Tavirense mayor defends that these functions he performed were also imbued with the “spirit of public service” that guarantees that he always moved, since the systems he sold serve to avoid wasting water and money in public networks.
“There are half a million euros in water losses per day across the country. In the Algarve, between 5 and 6 million euros could be saved per year if all the municipalities tackled the problem», he guaranteed.
In most of the Algarve Councils, there are very high losses of water in the public network, which is paid to the company Águas do Algarve, but it never reaches the taps of the citizens, getting lost along the way. This means that municipalities have to raise the water tariff to values that are not in line with actual expenditure.
According to Macário Correia, "there are municipalities where losses are greater than 40 percent." The exceptions, in the Algarve, are the municipalities of Faro and Tavira, the ones he managed, where losses "are below 20 percent" and within an acceptable limit.
Macário Correia forgot to mention the case of Portimão, where the water supply is managed by the municipal company EMARP, and where losses in 2012 (the last year for which official data are already known) was 17,47%…
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