The cleanliness of large cities and the civility of their inhabitants and of the tourists who visit them is one of the great concerns for citizens and for municipal governments. For this reason, the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) conducts an annual survey among citizens to draw up a ranking of the cleanest… and the dirtiest.
In the three worst positions —valued by their own neighbors— are Palma, Alicante and Seville, followed by San Sebastián de los Reyes and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Behind them are Barcelona and Madrid. The Catalan capital is one of the ones that has fallen the most: eleven points out of 100 since the previous 2019 survey; Sevilla drops ten points; and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria loses seven points.
Madrid, for its part, improves one position compared to the 2019 ranking, although it is tied in global satisfaction with Barcelona.
On the other hand, Oviedo, Bilbao and Vigo lead the towns with the best scores for being freer of dirt in the streets, dog droppings and graffiti, followed by Pamplona and Albacete.
These are some of the conclusions of the satisfaction survey with street cleaning carried out by the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) to 6,863 residents of 69 cities.
Some surveys indicate mediocre results in two out of three localities, and directly bad results in one out of three.
The data practically replicates those of the survey from four years ago, confirming the lack of progress in most of the large city councils.
Among the dozen aspects related to urban cleanliness that the respondents have evaluated, the worst ratings are focused on the excessive presence of dog droppings on the sidewalks, on the dirt around the containers, on the existence of graffiti and on the lack of General cleaning in suburban areas.
In general, the large Mediterranean and southern capitals with a large influx of tourists concentrate the lowest ratings, but this is not always the case.
Palma, Alicante and Seville stand out among the worst, followed by San Sebastián de los Reyes, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Barcelona and Madrid.
Among the towns that have better cleanliness scores than their neighbors, Oviedo, Bilbao and Vigo stand out (in this order) and are followed by Pamplona and Albacete, the latter after an increase of eleven points out of 100 compared to the previous survey.
Other considerable rises in the ranking have been registered in Guadalajara, which increased twenty-five points; Lugo, who now has eighteen more, and Ãvila with an additional seventeen.
The OCU has verified that a greater investment in cleaning does not improve the valuations because Pamplona and Albacete, two of the cleanest cities according to their neighbors, spend 46 euros per year per resident in this item compared to more than 80 euros in Seville, Barcelona and Madrid.
What does have a positive influence is the number of rainy days, and especially the frequency of cleaning tasks: the higher the frequency of sweeping and washing declared, the better the rating.
The councils would get better grades by dint of more water and more brooms without the need for expensive machinery, especially in peripheral areas, where it seems, as he maintains, that they are little used.
For this reason, OCU asks the city councils to increase the frequency of sweeping and washing down the streets and to control more dog excrement because -it warns- the number of fines for not picking up dog excrement is anecdotal and in most cities It is considered a minor offense.
Also, according to the organization, it is necessary for corporations to pay attention to the complaints of their citizens, and Cuenca, Toledo, Leganés, San Sebastián de los Reyes and Jerez stand out negatively in this regard.
