argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Barcelona City Hall will make waste containers disappear from city streets as of 2021
  • In a year and a half, the Barcelona City Hall will begin to remove the large open containers for waste from all the streets of its city, replacing them with more efficient collection systems. Pilot experiments are already being carried out in different neighborhoods: In Sarria the door-to-door collection has been in place since 2018 and has recently launched the collective door-to-door of Sant Andreu-Bon Pastor, similar to the one used by Zestoa in Gipuzkoa.
Zero Zabor @zero_zabor 2019ko irailaren 02a
Hondakinak atez ate biltzen dituzte Bartzelonako Sarria auzoan 2018tik. (Argazkia: Bartzelonako udala)

Eloi Badia is not a member of the Anti-Incineration Movement of Gipuzkoa, is a Barcelona councillor and vice-president of the AMB agency, which manages metropolitan waste, and has just said: "The usual container is an open landfill in the center of the city." This explains to journalists the decision of the Catalan capital to remove open containers from their streets. This is what he said when he assessed the results of the pilot experience that has been taking place in the Bon Pastor district of Sant Andreu since April.

A Community door-to-door collection system, similar to the one used in Zestoa, has been implemented in Bon Pastor: specific points are placed at 18:00 and controlled containers are removed at 23:00 so that the citizens can deposit in them the fractions corresponding to each day. According to the Council, since April there has been a 35% increase in the collection of paper-board, 32% in plastic and 43% in bidet. In addition, in organic waste collected separately, waste from garbage has dropped from 18% to 6.7%, which is essential for the jars to become compost, as the organic ones that carry a lot of garbage are condemned to the incinerator.

In the Bon Pastor of Sant Andreu, every day at 18:00 and at 23:00 special containers for waste are carried in parts of the neighborhood. (Photo: Barcelona City Hall)

The team of Mayor Ada Colau decided to implement the Zero Zabor strategy in Barcelona, as in the Catalan capital selective collection could not exceed 36% with the free container system. Now that they are in the process of selecting the new company that will serve in the cloud, the municipal plan is to completely modify the container system, starting in 2021 and up to 2025. Several variables are being tested and analyzed to decide the system that best suits each neighborhood. One is from Bon Pastor and another from Sarria from 2018, door to door. According to the City Council of Sarria, immediately after the door-to-door implementation, selective collection was managed to increase from 19% to 59% and since then it continues to improve; for example, organic waste collected does not carry more than 2% waste in Sarria.