Valencia launches the most ambitious waste collection and urban cleaning contract in its history

A more ecological, more technological and more human waste collection and city cleaning service, to achieve a cleaner city committed to achieving “zero waste”.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
26 November 2023 Sunday 22:02
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Valencia launches the most ambitious waste collection and urban cleaning contract in its history

A more ecological, more technological and more human waste collection and city cleaning service, to achieve a cleaner city committed to achieving “zero waste”. This is how the new and most important contract of the city of Valencia begins, with its current shock plan, to which a total of 1,192 workers will be added, 508 vehicles, practically all electric or low emissions, and the total renewal of most of the city's containers, which will be located on ecological islands, every 150 meters, to facilitate separation at origin for citizens.

In a city where rainfall is scarce throughout the year, the new cleaning contract will be characterized by an increase of more than 50% in cleaning frequencies with reused and treated water with the smell of orange blossom, and an increase very significant amount of new equipment for cleaning the remains deposited around the containers, as well as the junk and belongings that are abandoned without prior notice by the less aware citizens.

In addition, new technologies and new electrical machinery will be used to reduce the time it takes to resolve incidents, and the equipment, its operations and its frequencies will be adapted to the singularities and needs of each of the neighborhoods or districts of the city. It must be remembered that València has a fabulous historic center, with a large influx of tourism, with numerous catering and commercial businesses, more than 4 km of urban beaches, and 16 km of beaches immersed in the Devesa-Albufera Natural Park, apart from wonderful neighborhoods where the life of citizens bustles. In this way, the city's new cleaning services will adapt to the needs of each of these spaces to live, visit and coexist.

The city's other big bet will be to move steadily during this contract towards achieving the goal of zero waste to landfill, increasing the number of recycling containers, bringing them closer to citizens (no recycling container will be more than 150 meters from any home). ), increasing mobile recycling platforms in historic and tourist areas and in some neighborhoods, increasing the door-to-door collection service for commercial and large waste producers, or implementing 4,000 container closure and user identification sensors, to avoid recyclable waste deposited in the gray waste container, and increase through direct incentives to citizens the separation at source of organic matter in the brown container.

The contractors responsible for cleaning and collecting waste in the city will invest 87.8 million euros in the total improvement of the vehicles and material means that will be used to achieve the set objectives.

Thus, the total number of vehicles assigned to the service will increase by 39%, going from the current 359 vehicles to the 508 of the new contract. But the change will be even more significant in its environmental efficiency: close to 50% of the new fleet will be made up of electric vehicles and the other 50% will be made up of ecological vehicles, which will lead to a very significant reduction in noise pollution and emissions. polluting gases, reducing the city's carbon footprint.

Another of the great novelties of the contract will be the new special graffiti and poster cleaning service for the entire city. A total of 10 vehicles, and a new human team specialized in erasing graffiti, graffiti and posters from the city, to always offer citizens and visitors their cleanest face.

But the City Council of the city of Valencia is aware that, even allocating enormous human, technological and economic resources to its greatest service, without the collaboration of citizens it will not be possible to achieve the maximum objectives of cleanliness, cleanliness and sustainability of the city.

For this reason, a new Van-Neta has been introduced in the city's shock plan, which, driven by eight permanent environmental educators assigned to the service, will travel neighborhood by neighborhood, and district by district, to inform, help and raise awareness among citizens. in management. Apart from this, the Valencia City Council will undertake innovative and permanent citizen awareness campaigns in which it will involve various actors in the city to achieve these challenges that the city poses.