More powers for Palma's green teams

PALMA
PALMA'S environmental inspectors are to start operating at night with increased powers.
From February 4, environmental teams from the Council-run company responsible for the city's water supply and rubbish collection, EMAYA, will be on duty at night, from 11pm to 6am, in addition to their current daily rosters..

The Council's Enviroment Councillor and EMAYA President, Cristina Cerdo, said the objective of the extended hours was “to give a better service”.
She added that EMAYA had found that it was relatively normal during the night for bags of rubbish to be put beside the containers, for furniture to be dumped in the streets and graffiti to be painted on the walls of buildings and businesses.

Cerdo also announced that from February 4 the existing powers of the environmental teams would be extended.
The environmental teams will now inspect rubbish generated by companies situated on industrial estates, large businesses, buildings and private citizens.

She added that the teams would be checking to see if private sites were correctly locked, with the aim of avoiding rubbish being dumped in them.
The environmental teams began operating in 2001. Currently, there are only 15 environmental inspectors.
On January 11, Cerdo also announced a review of the actions carried out by the environmental teams during 2007. Last year the environmental teams carried out a total of 3'077 investigations, of which 2'012 ended in reportings, an increase of 60.4 percent in investigations carried out and 55 percent in reportings, in comparison with 2006, when 1'918 investigations were carried out, of which 1'298 ended in reportings.

The areas in which the majority of people were reported in 2007 were: Es Rafal Nou, Es Rafal Vell, Can Pastilla, Es Coll den Rebassa, Santa Catalina, Son Espanyolet and the historic part of Palma.

Cerdo said that the teams will exercise quality control on the rubbish collection service, both in regard to ordinary collections and recycling collections, to see if it is necessary to change the frequency of collections in certain places.

The teams will also conduct polls as to the level of citizen satisfaction with EMAYA's service.
Cerdo also announced that 120 Christmas trees had been collected from January 7 to 15, an increase of 45 more than during the previous year.