15/12/2004 00:00
TW
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By Humphrey Carter RUBBISH collection and street cleaning times are to be altered in palma in response to complaints from residents as reported by the Bulletin yesterday.

The city councillor for the environment and municipal water board EMAYA chiefs met yesterday afternoon to discuss this year's water collection and disposal results and used the meeting to address the complaints received from residents angry about the noise made by the street cleaners and rubbish collectors and anti-social times of the day.

President of EMAYA, Catalina Terrasa last night admitted that EMAYA has received a steady flow of complaints and that action is being taken.
In the mid-term, starting early next year, the city's street cleaners and waster collectors will be working to a whole new time table.
In the short term however, street cleaners using the noisy blowers which are the cause of many of the complaints, will be used one hour later.
So, instead of being used at 7.30am and waking people up, especially in the old part of palma and on Saturdays, the blower patrols will not start before 8.30am.

What is more selective waste collections, such as glass and card boards, will only be carried out during the morning or afternoon, not in the early and late hours.

With regards to the waste collection trucks thundering through the old part of Palma in the early hours, this is apparently only temporary while EMAYA monitors the performance of hydraulic waste collection system being installed.

Once the new hydraulic system is running perfectly, then most of the waste disposal trucks will no longer be needed in the old town.
Before Christmas the new rubbish collection time table is expected to be revealed, but in the mean time the City Council and EMAYA is going to do all it can to respect the wishes and comfort of city residents.

However, residents still having to use the green wheelie bins, are only supposed to put their rubbish out between 8pm and 11pm and the council will continue to fine those caught breaking the rules. This year, rubbish patrols have been stepped up by 109 percent and nearly 8'000 people have been denounced.

When the rubbish patrols started in 2001, there were only 10 inspectors on the beat, now there are 21 and, compared to last year, nearly twice the number of people have been reported.