Barcelona City Council is replacing all the litter bins in the Ciutat Vella district with new ones with greater capacity. The implementation of the new cleaning contract has already meant the renewal of 430. Over the next few months, more or less until March, the City Council will replace another 1,074.
The initiative detailed by the councilor responsible for this area of ??the city, the socialist Albert Batlle, consists of retiring all these devices with a capacity of less than 70 liters each, with others of about 70. In this way, cleaning services will go from collect in this district about 132 tons of waste every day to remove up to ten more tons. This is, stressed the Deputy Mayor for Security, one of the legs of Pla Endreça.
Dirt in public spaces is one of the most entrenched endemic problems in these neighborhoods. And the residents of Ciutat Vella are no more uncivil than those of the rest of the city. But these narrow streets make it extremely difficult to install containers and also collect garbage. The residents of Sarrià are just as prone to leaving bags of waste in the bins as those of Raval or Gòtic, but in these corners of Ciutat Vella the consequences of this behavior are much more evident. Furthermore, the pressure caused by the continuous passage of residents and visitors through these streets and squares is one of the highest in all of Barcelona. For this reason, the City Council will also install new litter bins in twenty especially difficult points in the district.
The Plaza de la Gardunya, to give an example, one of the largest picnic areas in the city, the meeting point for countless tourists who take a good look at the prepared dishes they buy at the Boqueria market, a lot of globetrotters who people spend the day here eating and drinking and also some residents of the area, it is already the scene of a pilot test of anti-seagull bins. It is a sometimes shocking spectacle typical of National Geographic.
Seagulls fly over the square on the lookout for leftover food. Some, the most daring and aggressive, violently dispute the paella plates abandoned on the benches, among other things. The others, meanwhile, rummage through the bins, leaving everything lost, in a mess, full of waste. Then many pigeons realize what is left on the ground. Sometimes, a seagull lets out a forceful Bruce Lee-style peck and kills a pigeon, and then eats it. Maybe he retreats to the side, maybe he devours her right there.
There is no way to set up a waste collection system that stops this dynamic. The City Council installed contraceptive feed dispensers for pigeons. And now he is installing fifteen anti-seagull bins. They are not bins with traps or anything like that that trap these birds. But its design, at least in theory, does not allow seagulls to insert their heads and beaks.
In addition, the City Council will replace 221 pneumatic collection boxes that are currently in poor condition, a result of corrosion of the materials. The new system must prevent the entry of bulky elements that could damage the ducts. This mailbox, says Councilor Batlle himself, is more practical and ergonomic and has a vertical opening. It also has a round handle to open the door that makes it easier to use and an opening pedal.
