More than 60,000 inhabitants will be the protagonists of the pilot project through which, after having tested it with the large producers, the selective collection of organic waste in the so-called fifth container or brown container will be put to the test. Yesterday, the Santa Cruz City Council presented the schedule of an initiative that seeks for the residents of Santa Cruz to separate the organic remains of their garbage from the rest. The new containers, 147 in this first phase, will have a key that will be given to each of the families that join this initiative. To do this, they should go to the Citizen Attention Office of the Cleaning Service that is in the Curtidos Hermanos Dorta square, where they will collect the key and the organic kit delivered by the City Council, and made up of a package of compostable bags (the only ones that can be can be used to deposit the garbage in the brown container) and a bucket, 7 liters capacity for organic waste.
The mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, in the presentation of this pilot project, stressed that Santa Cruz will be the first of the four large municipalities in the Canary Islands to implement home collection of organic waste, and explained that, in an initial phase, adherence to this This service will be voluntary, although in the medium term it will be mandatory in order to increase waste recycling and meet the objectives set in European regulations.
An obligation, which, as advanced by the mayor of Public Services, Guillermo Díaz Guerra, will be included in the new Cleaning Ordinance on which it is already working, and which will be enforced “through the relevant authority.”
This first phase begins the first week of November with the implementation of 24 containers in the Cuatro Torres, El Cabo, Los Llanos and San Sebastián areas, to reach the 147 expected this year at the end of December. Starting in 2022, the separate collection of household organic waste will be extended to the other four districts of the municipality until a total of 1,486 containers are added, an implementation that is scheduled to be completed in 2025.
David Posada, Head of Service at Valoriza, a concessionaire of the municipal cleaning and waste collection service, emphasized that, unlike the rest, the new containers are provided with a lock and can only be opened with a key, to try to control that other types of non-organic waste are not deposited in them.
In the coming months, the City Council will carry out an extensive information and environmental awareness campaign.
