Barcelona City Council is replacing all the bins in the Ciutat Vella district with new ones with more capacity. The launch of the new cleaning contract has already meant the renewal of 430 bins. Over the next few months, more or less until March, the Consistory will replace around 1,074 more.
The initiative detailed yesterday by the councilor responsible for this part of the city, the socialist Albert Batlle, consists of retiring all these devices with a capacity of less than 70 liters each in favor of others of around 70 liters. In this way, the cleaning services will go from collecting around 132 tons of waste in this district every day to removing up to ten tons more. It is, the Deputy Mayor for Security emphasized, one of the legs of the Endreça Plan.
Dirt in public spaces is one of the most endemic problems in these neighborhoods. And the residents of Ciutat Vella are no more uncivil than those in the rest of the city. But these narrow streets make the installation of containers and also the collection of rubbish extremely difficult. The residents of Sarrià are just as likely to leave bags of rubbish in the bins as those of Raval or Gòtic, but in these corners of Ciutat Vella the consequences of this behavior are much more obvious. In addition, the pressure caused by the continuous passage of residents and visitors on these streets and squares is one of the highest in all of Barcelona. For this reason, the City Council will also install new bins in around twenty particularly complicated points in the district.
Plaça de la Gardunya, to give an example, one of the biggest snack bars in the city, the meeting point for countless tourists who hungrily eat the prepared dishes they buy at the Boqueria market, from a lot of Rodamons who spend the day eating and drinking here and also from a neighbor in the area, it is already the scene of a pilot test of old-fashioned bins. It is a show that is sometimes shocking, typical of National Geographic.
Seagulls fly over the square looking for scraps of food. Some, the most daring and aggressive, violently dispute over the paella dishes left on the benches, among other things. The others, meanwhile, rummage through the bins, leaving everything dirty, disgusting, full of waste. Then many pigeons eat what is left on the ground. Sometimes a seagull lets out a hard peck in the purest Bruce Lee style and charges a pigeon, and then eats it. Maybe it retreats to the side, maybe it devours him right there.
There is no way to set up a waste collection system that will stop this dynamic. Barcelona City Council installed contraceptive feed dispensers for pigeons. And now he is putting fifteen old-fashioned bins. It’s not trash cans with vines or anything like that that catch these birds. But its design, at least in theory, does not allow seagulls to poke their heads and beaks into it.
In addition, the City Council will change 221 pneumatic collection boxes that are currently in poor condition as a result of corrosion of the materials. The new system must prevent the entry of bulky elements that spoil the ducts. This letterbox, says councilor Batlle himself, is more practical and ergonomic and has a vertical opening. It also has a round knob to open the door that makes it easier to use and an opening pedal.