Neus Truyol, the president of Palma's Emaya public services agency and the councillor for ecology, has an ambitious plan for Playa de Palma's rubbish collection. This will involve removing the negative visual impact of the rubbish containers and will pick up on a project that was approved some years ago by the Playa de Palma Consortium and the hotel sector. The consortium, which comprises representatives from the town halls of Palma and Llucmajor as well as the regional government, had come to an agreement with hoteliers for there to be underground containers instead in certain parts of the resort area.
Though it was not put into effect, the agreement still stands, and so the town hall is planning on paying for 20% (280,000 euros) to put the containers underground, with the Consortium being responsible for the rest. The town hall has already set aside its part of the budget, and once the Consortium supplies the remainder, the project will be undertaken.
In addition to this project, plans are being put in place to allow the majority of hotels to have their rubbish collected directly from them. At present, says Truyol, this applies to only thirty hotels, but the intention is to add a further sixty establishments. Next month, she will be talking with these hotels which, because of their size and layout, have space for containers inside their grounds.
The overall aim is to remove the problem of the visual blight caused by the current rubbish collection system from Palma's principal tourism area.