The City Council of Granadilla de Abona yesterday received the highest national award, three Blue Pajaritas, in recognition of “the excellence of its management in the selective collection of paper and cardboard in 2021”. It is the only municipality in the Canary Islands to receive an award for its commitment to recycling, a distinction it has received for the fifth consecutive year, this being the third time it has received the highest degree. The Secretary of State for Territorial Policy, Alfredo González Gómez, conveyed this recognition to the mayor, José Domingo Regalado, during the event held in Madrid and organized by the Spanish Association of Pulp, Paper and Cardboard Manufacturers (Aspapel), which was also attended by the vice president and the manager of the municipal company Sermugran, Candelaria Rodríguez and Aitor González, respectively.
Last year, Granadilla de Abona collected 1,070 tons of paper and cardboard from the blue containers, one hundred more than in 2020, which places the municipality among the 28 local entities that were awarded three Blue Birds, among which are Barcelona, Bilbao, Cáceres, Cádiz, Calva, Ciudad Real, Córdoba, Seville, Valladolid, Vitoria and Pamplona.
The neighbors deposited 1,070 tons in the blue containers in the past year, one hundred more than in 2020
“This award is achieved thanks to citizen collaboration in the bet that this City Council makes in terms of recycling, in this case, of paper and cardboard, as well as the human team of the public company Sermugran. This award is yours,” he argued the mayor, José Domingo Regalado.
María Candelaria Rodríguez maintained that Granadilleros “continue to be a benchmark in terms of selective collection in the Canary Islands and we are achieving that Granadilla de Abona and Sermugran are placed on the national recycling map”. The vice president of the only public company in the Islands that receives this award valued that it reaffirms “the commitment made five years ago to assume the management of the collection of paper and cardboard.”
Record of participants
For her part, the president of Aspapel, Elisabet Alier, pointed out that this year, “despite the difficult situation caused by the pandemic, we have broken a record of participation in the program, with 45 winners, which demonstrates the involvement of the entities in its commitment to excellence in the selective collection of paper and cardboard”. In addition, the councilor thanked the winners who, even in the worst moments of the pandemic, have provided a service to citizens and maintained the levels of waste paper collection, allowing the industry to continue with its recycling activity.
The mayor, José Domingo Regalado, highlights the role of citizens as an essential element in the results obtained
Pajaritas Azules is an annual program of advice, evaluation and recognition of the quality of municipal management in selective collection for recycling paper and cardboard, focused on continuous improvement. The evaluation is based on 21 indicators that, according to established scales, analyze the collection of the blue container and other complementary ones, the campaigns and actions of information and citizen awareness, the regulation and management planning and the results and traceability until the final recycling. . Its application allows awarding one, two or three Blue Bow Ties, according to an objective scale and based on the results obtained in the evaluation.
Granadilla de Abona is among the only 45 municipalities in thirteen autonomous communities throughout Spain recognized by this annual program developed by Aspapel.
National honors
In the balance of the meeting, Granadilla is one of the 28 municipalities with the highest recognition, three Blue Birds; nine achieved two and eight received one. By autonomous communities, the podium is for Andalusia and the Community of Madrid, with eight award-winning entities each; Catalonia, with six, and Castilla y León with five. They are followed by the Balearic Islands and the Basque Country with three, and Aragón, Castilla La Mancha and La Rioja with two each. The Canary Islands (Granadilla de Abona, with three bow ties), the Foral Community of Navarra, Extremadura, Galicia, Asturias and Murcia close the table, with an award-winning entity each.
