The City Council of Madrid has awarded Ferrovial Services the contract for special collection points and home sanitation operations in the city of Madrid for a sum of €20 M for a period of four years with the possibility of renewal for one more year.
The contract includes currently operating 16 current municipal Special Collection Point facilities, as well as operating 330 weekly locations that are currently Mobile Special Collection Points, plus the 20 additional ones offered as evaluation criteria in figures or percentages, coming to a total of 350 locations.
The contract also accounts for the operation of 10 current facilities for Area Special Collection Points, 20 additional ones required by the Technical Specifications Sheet, and 20 more offered as evaluation criteria in figures or percentages, coming to a total of 50 facilities. It includes sanitation and waste collection from homes and businesses determined by Madrid Health municipal services or the appropriate authorities.
Promoting the use of collection points
Furthermore, the contract includes a mobile app, which is open to residents, that makes collection points available to them for exchanging various objects that have come to the end of their useful life for some but may still be useful to others.
It establishes an individual points system that shows the degree of use at collection points. That points system generates some competition that will encourage users to donate items that are still in good condition.
When users contribute items or objects that are useful and in good condition, they create a culture of circular economy. To do so, they can post an image or a description of the objectsso that other users can see their condition and characteristics, reserve them, pick them up, and continue to use them.
The culture of circular economy incentivizes using collection points, and it increases the feeling of cleanliness in the city because objects aren’t being left in public walkways. Resident participation is in collaboration with meeting European directives.
The main goal of this system is getting the highest number of citizens possible to use collection points, thereby encouraging the reduction of certain types of leftover waste. That leftover waste is the waste from homes that is left after separated waste collection.
This service is adapted to the needs of the city, since it reduces the amount of waste going to landfills, promoting reusing objects that are still in good condition.
