Government Shifts the Asbestos-Waste Burden onto Town Halls as Specialists Point to Enforcement Gaps

The government has redrawn the lines of responsibility for one of Portugal's most persistent public-health hazards, confirming that the removal and management of amianto (asbestos) waste from small private construction and renovation works falls to the country's municipal waste-management systems. The amendment to the Regime Geral de Gestão de Resíduos (General Waste Management Regime) was approved by the Conselho de Ministros (Council of Ministers) in May 2026 and analysed in detail on 22 June. Specialists welcome the clarity but warn that, on the ground, very little is set to change.

What the amendment actually does

The provisions assigning municipalities a role in handling asbestos waste are not new. They previously sat in Decreto-Lei n.º 46/2008 (Decree-Law 46/2008) but were never carried over into the general waste regime that governs how Portugal collects, transports and disposes of refuse. The latest change simply folds those rules into the main framework, making explicit that the sistemas municipais de gestão de resíduos (municipal waste-management systems) are responsible for asbestos arising from minor private works. It is, in effect, a tidying-up exercise that consolidates existing obligations rather than inventing them.

The gaps specialists flag

For those who work with asbestos daily, the reform carries symbolic and regulatory weight but does not close the practical loopholes that allow the material to keep circulating. Carmen Lima, president of the asbestos-awareness association SOS Amianto, said the change has "political and regulatory value" but is "no novelty in practice." The recurring problems, specialists say, are structural:

• No mandatory pre-works asbestos inventory or survey for private homes, leaving residents unaware they may be exposed before they pick up a hammer.
• Insufficient inspection and enforcement, so illegal dumping and informal removal practices persist.
• Weak traceability, with little assurance that waste is tracked from its point of removal to final, licensed disposal.

Marina Côrte-Real of AEPRA (Associação de Empresas para a Remoção de Amianto / Association of Asbestos-Removal Companies) warned that "any responsibility transfer cannot create gaps" in the legal obligations for safe removal, stressing that trained specialists must carry out the work under worker-safety legislation. The concern is a familiar one in Portuguese regulatory reform: a cleaner rulebook means little without the inspection muscle to back it, an issue that has surfaced elsewhere, including in the way the cabinet has stretched the phytosanitary sanctions regime while leaving enforcement capacity in question.

Where asbestos still lurks

Asbestos has been banned in Portugal for more than two decades, yet it remains embedded across the built environment. Lima stressed that the material appears in thousands of products far beyond the school roofing that dominates public attention, including old bathroom fixtures, adhesives and tiles. It is still found in schools, in hospitals — a dermatology service at an Egas Moniz hospital was among the sites cited — and in private homes, where fibrocimento (fibre-cement) cisterns, roofing tiles and similar materials are common in older properties.

What This Means for Homeowners and Renters

• Survey before you renovate: If you own or are buying an older property, treat fibre-cement roofing, cisterns, tiles and adhesives as suspect and have them assessed before any demolition or works begin.
• Use only licensed removers: Asbestos removal must be carried out by trained specialists operating under worker-safety legislation — not by a general builder or yourself.
• Contact your câmara municipal: Because municipal systems are now explicitly responsible for asbestos from small works, ask your town hall how it collects and routes this waste before scheduling any removal.
• Never DIY-dump: Do not break up or send asbestos to ordinary waste streams or quiet roadsides; illegal dumping is exactly the informal practice specialists are warning about.
• Factor it into the lease and the deal: Tenants and buyers of older stock should raise the question early, alongside the other obligations covered in our guide to signing a rental lease in Portugal in 2026.

Whether this consolidation translates into safer homes will depend less on the wording of the regime than on what follows it: a mandatory survey requirement, real inspection capacity, and traceability from removal to disposal. Until those pieces arrive, the amendment will remain what the specialists describe — a meaningful clarification on paper, and an open question on the ground.