Help in collecting rubbish offered to Palma

THE Council of Majorca wants the Palma city council to do more about the selective collection of rubbish, arguing that while 52 percent of the population lives in Palma, only 20 percent of rubbish is selected to be put in the corresponding bins. This was confirmed yesterday by Miquel Riera, who is head of the Council's department which liaises with town and village councils.
He said that the Council is in charge of the selective collection all over the island with the exception of Calvia and Palma and he claimed that the system works better in the outlying towns and villages than in the island's capital. He pointed out that while in Palma, only 20 percent of rubbish is selected for recycling, the percentage for the rest of the island is 80 percent.
Riera said that talks were now underway with the city council, in particular with Antoni Nadal, who is in charge of Emaya, which collects rubbish and cleans the streets. “We want to help the council introduce the yellow containers (for plastic),” he said yesterday.
He even hinted that the Council may be prepared to empty the special containers as well, although he admitted that various conditions would have to be agreed on before this came to pass. Riera was speaking at the presentation of the new logo for the Environmental Technologies Park (the recyling plant near Son Reus), which celebrated its first anniversary yesterday and will be holding an Open Doors day today. He was accompanied by Guillem Riera, the director of rubbish management, and Angel Fernández, the manager of Tirme, which handles all the rubbish on the island. Guillem Riera said that one of the basic aims for this legislature is to “close the rubbish tip at Son Reus and become the leading region in the world for a healthy rubbish tip, a complicated and complex challenge but which the Council of Majorca is determined to achieve.” He added that Son Reus receives an average of 180'000 tons a year, and with a volume such as that, closing it is not a short term proposition. It needs long and careful planning. He went on to say that “we cannot close a tip which at the moment has passed the expectations laid down in the master plan for rubbish disposal, for two major reasons: we have not been capable of reducing the production of rubbish, and because we have to take into account not only the people who live on the island but the nine or ten million people who visit us.” One project which will be carried out during this legislature is a plant for the incineration of animal remains which should be working by the end of next year. That is the only installation which remains to be built under the master plan, he said.
The Environmental Technologies Park has the latest technologies for treating rubbish in a way that is respectful to the environment and which also produces energy. It has been visited by 10'000 people. Fifty two percent were schoolchildren and 26 percent were members of pensioners' associations. Today, there will be guided tours on board the overhead railway which goes around the plant, games for children and other entertainment.