Councillor for Road Cleaning and Solid Urban Waste, Dámaso Aparicio, spoke of his plans for Glass Recycling in summer, which will focus especially on the coast in order to encourage recycling during the time of year when the population and consumption increases considerably.
The council has joined with recycling company Ecoembes and their campaign “Take note, recycle glass”, which will involve more than 90 bars and restaurants on the Orihuela Costa and an additional 25 glass recycling containers. Aparicio also said that ” there will be many new recycling points that will be added to those already in existence so that we are able to capture the attention of residents and tourists.”
According to data provided by Ecoembes, during the summer approximately 30% of the annual total of glass waste glass is recycled so “it is necessary to win the cooperation of the hotel and bar industry, which generates almost 50% of the waste to glass containers, “said Roberto Fuertes, zone manager Levante of Ecoembes.
According to the latest data available (2016), each oriolano recycled an average of 26.9 kg of glass, well above the regional average of 16.5 kg per inhabitant. The total figure across the municipality was 2,164,590 kilos.
With a total of 606 recycling containers around the area Orihuela has an average of one for every 133 inhabitants.
And the prize for the establishment that recycles the most glass during the campaign, a master class with the chef Ángel León, ambassador of the initiative, and currently the holder of two Michelin Stars.
Of course while we applaud the Town Hall for their initiative we find on the Orihuela Costa, particularly in the area of Aguamarina (Calles Mar y Cielo), that too many of the bars and restaurants feel that they are exempt from the basic rules of cleanliness, as they simply dump their bottles and containers in plastic bags on the roads and the pavements.
There are some occasions when this is necessary, however, because of the overflowing bins and bottle banks caused by the lack of collections, as the council seems inflexible with regard to the increased frequency that is required during the holiday season, but I do feel that it will take rather more than a demonstration from a celebrity chef to make a great deal of difference to the situation on the Orihuela Costa.
