Good morning, Lisbon. It's Saturday, April 11, and we're looking at 20°C with sunshine. The metro is running normally this weekend before Tuesday's next walkout, Portugal's new bottle deposit scheme went live yesterday, and you have two full days to enjoy the city before the chaos resumes.
🌬️ AIR QUALITY: 22 (Good).
🗞️ TOP STORY
PORTUGAL FINALLY HAS A BOTTLE DEPOSIT SCHEME. IT ONLY TOOK NEARLY A DECADE.
Yesterday, April 10, Portugal's Deposit and Refund System went live nationwide. Officially SDR, branded Volta in shops. You pay 10 cents extra per drink, return the empty bottle or can to a machine, and get your 10 cents back as a voucher redeemable for cash or store credit.
2,500 machines, 8,000 manual collection points, and 48 larger kiosks, most at or near supermarkets. Covers single-use plastic and metal up to three litres. 90% of the soft drink, water, and beer industry has signed on, along with 80% of retailers. The target is the 2.1 billion plastic and aluminium bottles Portugal gets through every year.
The "only in Portugal" part: the scheme has been planned since 2017. A 2018 law required it to be operational by January 1, 2022. It is now April 2026. Nearly a decade in the making, four years past its own legal deadline.
A few practical notes. Bottles and cans need the Volta logo (a horseshoe-shaped arrow and the word Return) to be accepted. Until August 10, there's a transition period where the same products are sold with and without the logo, so expect confusion at the return machines for the next four months. Bottles also need to be intact, dry, with cap and readable barcode. Crushed, wet, or capless bottles will be rejected, which is going to lead to some entertaining scenes at the Pingo Doce.
The big criticism, and it's a fair one, is that glass was left out. Zero, the environmental association that's been campaigning for this scheme for the better part of a decade, pointed out yesterday that Portugal does not meet its glass recycling targets, that glass is 100% recyclable, and that Portuguese beverage packaging is mostly glass anyway (beer and wine bottles). Zero's vice-president Susana Fonseca said the government made "a political decision not to follow what had been approved" by Parliament, and that the country will miss its glass targets as a direct result. A win, with an asterisk.
Bottom line: if you're doing a supermarket run this weekend, you'll start seeing the Volta machines. Your drinks are now 10 cents more expensive, but you get it back if you return the empties. On current evidence, there is always someone willing to collect the ones you don't.
⚡ QUICK HITS
Second Metro strike Tuesday, April 14. Next 24-hour walkout is three days away. FECTRANS confirmed, no minimum service. Plan your week. Anyone with a flight, school run, or appointment on Tuesday should sort alternatives this weekend.
Portugal's GDP growth forecast cut to 1.5%. The Portugal Post reported this week that the 2026 forecast has been revised down to 1.5%, with a Q1 contraction now considered possible. Main drag: the fuel price surge from the Hormuz crisis and knock-on effects on construction and transport. Not a crisis yet, but the direction of travel is not good.
TAP profits down 92% year-on-year. The national carrier posted just €4.1 million in profit for 2025, a 92% collapse. TAP blames IRC tax changes. Operations themselves remain strong at 16.7 million passengers, with a Porto expansion underway. Relevant because Air France-KLM is currently the frontrunner in the privatisation process after IAG dropped out earlier this month.
Three parties want to expand mandatory military service for 18-year-olds. Portugal's three main parties have jointly proposed expanding the Dia da Defesa Nacional from one day to five days for all 18-year-olds. Cross-party agreement on anything in this Parliament is news in itself.
🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY
Since today's top story is about Portugal finally catching up with itself, here's a restaurant that's been quietly doing its own thing since 1905.
Taberna Albricoque sits on Rua Caminhos de Ferro, a few minutes' walk from Santa Apolonia station. The building first opened in 1905 as a tavern for travellers arriving on the trains, and has been feeding people in more or less the same spot ever since. The original hydraulic-tile floor is still down. The name is an old Algarvian word for apricot, which is a clue to the kitchen's approach: this is an Algarve restaurant in Lisbon, run by Algarve-born chef Bertílio Gomes, cooking the food of his home region with produce sourced directly from Portuguese producers.
The menu changes constantly. Expect mackerel tartare, octopus, hake, rabbit, and a ribeye that has its own small fan base. The oxtail stew when it appears is worth the trip on its own. Starters tend to include unusual touches like olives fermented to taste of sausage, or salads built around the purple carrots traditional to the Algarve. The wine list leans Portuguese and fair.
Mains sit around €18-25, and you can eat very well for €35-40 a head. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Book ahead, especially for the terrace in good weather.
Rua Caminhos de Ferro 98, Santa Apolonia.
Insider tip: Ask what the chef has brought up from the Algarve that morning. If the answer involves carapau or fresh fish, it’s probably good.
📅 WHAT'S ON
Italian Film Festival (Tonight, Sat April 11) Second night at the Coliseu dos Recreios. Runs through April 18, closing gala with Claudia Cardinale tribute.
Feira da Ladra (Tomorrow, Sun April 12) Campo de Santa Clara flea market. Get there before 10am for the good stuff before the dealers clear it out.
Tinariwen (Tue April 14) LAV Lisboa Ao Vivo. Desert blues from the Sahara.
Arsenal v Sporting, second leg (Wed April 15) Champions League quarter-final at the Emirates, 8pm UK. Arsenal lead 1-0.
Liberty Day (Sat April 25) Public holiday. Carnation Revolution celebrations along Avenida da Liberdade.
📜 ON THIS DAY
April 11, 1814. Napoleon Bonaparte signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau and formally abdicated as Emperor of the French, ending twelve years of rule and a run of European wars that had cost somewhere between three and six million lives. The terms gave him sovereignty over Elba, a personal guard of 600 men, and an annual allowance of two million francs from the French treasury, which the French never actually paid. He tried to poison himself the night he signed it. The poison, which he had carried since the retreat from Moscow two years earlier, had lost its potency. He survived, sailed to Elba, and spent ten months there before escaping, landing in the south of France, marching on Paris, and reclaiming the throne for a hundred days before Waterloo ended it for good. There's a lesson in there somewhere about how rarely people actually go away when you tell them to.
See you tomorrow morning.