By: JENNY GRAINER
I’M RATHER proud of Portugal’s stance on recycling. Long gone are the days when we left kitchen refuse outside in buckets or, worse, in thin plastic bags, where dogs and cats could rip them apart.
The first improvement on this was the big metal containers but they didn’t get washed too often and stank to high heaven while the ever-open lids made them a continuingly glorious feral environment.
Now we either have big bottle or paper banks with green heavy lidded containers for non recyclable rubbish, plus black plastic bags given free by your local câmara when you present your water bill and better by far if you live in a town or city, there are the ‘Treasure Islands’. These big square containers give off no odour at all and, certainly in our area, residents scrupulously read the labels to be sure that everything is going into the right container. It really has made life much more difficult for late night scavengers and, unlike some, ours are regularly emptied.
In our home, we are not manic about the issue, but have always been in the habit of not throwing anything away that might just be found a second purpose in life, other than the one it started out with. Large glass jars are used for a variety of kitchen foods like pasta, beans or sugar or even buttons, while little ones end up as herb jars or containers for loose screws, nuts and nails and all those odd items you don’t know quite what to do with but just can’t throw away.
Donors needed
We have friends who never pass a day without buying an English newspaper, something not within our current budget, and as we hear daily news on the television anyway, we consider it to be a wanton waste. However, as I do like reading the feature stories and opinion columns and my husband is a sudoko addict, we now collect their weekly pile which gets read again by us before hitting the recycling container. All my clothes (when I can bear to part with them as I’m always convinced they will fit again or at least come back into fashion) get washed and then taken to a charity shop where they can be sold, given away or even used for rags. Likewise, most furniture will be useful to someone, as will linen and kitchenware.
The one thing a lot of people seem to be unwilling to recycle for some reason is the human body. I can imagine that when a loved one dies unexpectedly and the request to use a part of that beloved body is made, it must be a horrendous moment and a difficult decision to have to make at a time when you are at your most vulnerable. Isn’t that a very good reason for having that choice taken away from you?
Not many people want to face up to what will happen to their bodies after they spiritually no longer inhabit them. A few fill in donor cards but this would never apply to babies, children or adolescents and yet it is other young bodies that so often desperately need donor organs to give them a chance to grow into adults.
If your own child has suffered a tragic death, isn’t it better to think of them living on in some other young person than just relegating all the good they couldn’t do in life but could achieve in death to perish and do nothing?
It isn’t just a young area. So many people are desperately ill with little or no chance of survival without a donor to provide the lifesaving or at least the life enhancing organ that they need, which, after all, will be of no earthly or heavenly use to its owner after they have drawn their last breath.
Save lives
Very elderly friends of mine arranged with their lawyer to have their bodies donated to the medical university in Coimbra so that they might be useful in training young doctors when their organs were too old to be of use for any other purpose.
The very least we can do is donate blood. It is now a very simple and safe procedure and especially if you have an unusual blood type you will be rewarded with totally free consultations on the health system as well as make you feel good at having helped someone and at no further cost than a little of your time.
If you really have strong objections in allowing your body to be used to save lives after your death then you need to know that Portugal, like Spain, has an ‘opt out’ policy, which means you can register your objection to becoming an organ donor rather than the current British system of ‘opting in.’ A spokeswoman for the British Embassy confirmed to me that all nationals and residents of Portugal fall under the Portuguese law although for temporary visitors, the legislation of their own country applies.
To opt out of the system, go to your local medical centre and ask to complete the form to be on the national Registo Nacional de Não Dadores (RENNDA). After the details have been verified, your name will be placed on a central terminal and you will be given a card to carry saying you DO NOT wish to be a donor in the event of your death.
Something to ponder on – if someone you cared about were to die because a willing donor could not be found and a possible donor had, in fact ,chosen to ‘opt out’ during their lifetime, how would you feel if, at some time in their lives, that person needed and requested a donor organ themselves?
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