Alicante to Audit City Cleaning After a "Suboptimal" Summer

The cleanliness in Alicante continues to be a headache for the government team, which has adhered to the initiative presented by Compromís in this Thursday's plenary session to create a non-permanent commission on the contract. The mayor, Luis Barcala, has acknowledged that "we must be demanding" with Netial, the new service concessionaire, which began service last September.

The debate about the city's cleanliness is constant. The opposition sees it as one of the weak points of municipal management and frequently uses it. The difference this time has been the position of the government team. In an exercise of "sincerity," Deputy Mayor and Cleaning Councilor Manuel Villar has admitted that "it has not been the best summer" in this regard.

The massive influx of visitors may be one of the causes, but now solutions must be found. Villar did not want to blame it solely on the "lack of citizen awareness", and he referred to problems in service organization "that have not worked as we would have liked."

Nevertheless, the municipal cleaning official defended the resources available to the contract, with 40 more street sweepers and new, larger machinery. Regarding the accumulation of items around containers, the Alicante City Council has 26 trucks for collecting items, nine during the day (two more than in the previous contract) and 17 at night, which travel around the city collecting items left outside deposits.

Explanations that have not satisfied the opposition. The proponent, Compromís spokesperson Rafa Mas, was very vehement in stating that "we are drowning in filth," a frequently repeated expression that earned him a rebuke from the plenary president, Mayor Luis Barcala. Mas reminded that "Alicante is the second dirtiest city in Spain," according to a 2017 OCU survey, as recalled by the mayor.

For his part, Socialist councilor Raúl Ruiz referred to comments on social media about the city's "degradation" over a few years in terms of cleanliness. Representatives from Coordinadora de Alicante Limpia (CAL) and Mateo Piñeiro, president of the Pla Neighborhood Association, also spoke in this regard.