Simon Wade
ORIHUELA City Council is installing 68 new litter bins at playgrounds throughout the municipality to encourage recycling among children.
The program is meant to raise awareness about the importance of waste separation.
The new recycling units are made up of three inner bins for selectively depositing different types of waste: organic, plastic and paper/card.
Dámaso Aparicio, Director of Street Cleaning and RSU, said: “The location of these bins will be in the nearby spaces most used by the little ones, such as playgrounds, [so they] will be familiarized with selective recycling.
“In the future, they will be responsible for the planet and thus are helping to take care of our environment,” he continued.
A council statement said: “Promoting recycling reduces pollution, preserves natural resources, contributes to energy savings and reduces the costs of goods created from reused materials.”
The purchase of the 68 bins is costing €14,000, after a short bidding process helped by an abbreviated simplified open procedure.
The units are added to the 189 other simpler recycling bins installed throughout the municipality last summer, at a cost of €16,000.
With possible reference to the responsibility of adults regarding rubbish, Aparicio lamented, “[Council workers] find masks, papers, wrappers and even bottles lying on the sidewalks every day, which entails a danger to the health of pedestrians.”
Concluding, “It does not require so much effort to find the nearest bin to deposit small waste items without having to throw them on the ground.”
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