- The service will be provided seven days a week, instead of the current six, and will also have advanced and more modern machinery
- The next plenary session will launch the call for tenders for the service, and once the specifications have been published, companies will be able to submit tenders
The government team in the Redován Town Hall will take to the next plenary session the start of the tender for the waste collection and street cleaning service with the approval of the specifications that will govern the contract. Once the plenary session is over, the documentation will be sent to the Public Procurement Portal so that companies can apply for the tender. This was announced at a press conference by the town’s mayor, Nely Ruiz, and the councillor for finance, Adrián Ballester, accompanied by the councillor for municipal services, Ramón López, who stressed that the service was being updated to meet the needs of the population and the measures needed to protect the environment, with the introduction of the fifth container for organic waste and the increase in the number of containers for recycling containers, plastics, paper, cardboard and glass.
The head of the municipal Treasury Department explained that a specialised firm has been responsible for preparing the specifications and the operating project to be fulfilled by the company that is awarded the contract, which is one of the most important contracts for the Redondo City Council and which will significantly improve the service currently provided. Ballester added that the process will be transparent, since the Contracting Committee will include both municipal technicians who are familiar with the local situation and technicians from the Alicante Provincial Council, who are specialists in this type of contract. Once awarded, the contract will be audited by an external agent during its execution.
Redován Town Council is putting the contract out to public tender for a sum of 432.924,74 euros (without VAT) per year, and wants to incorporate the latest technology and most environmentally friendly methods into this service. Therefore, the collection of the organic fraction separated from the rest of the waste will be included through the implementation of the brown container in the streets of the municipality. “We will be one of the first municipalities in the Vega Baja to incorporate this legal and environmental requirement into a contract”, explained the mayor, Nely Ruiz, who added that “our aim is to have the best technological systems to provide an effective and rapid response to all needs”. In addition, the first mayor has assured that once the service has been set up, the rubbish will be collected from Monday to Sunday, “and not six days like now”.
Another of the points to be highlighted is containment. “On the one hand we are looking to increase recycling and transform Redován into a green municipality, which is why we want to increase the number of containers both for rest and organic waste and for lightweight packaging and paper and cardboard”, said Ruiz, who added that “we want the waste to be collected two days a week, instead of one day”. In this sense, it will also be included as a requirement that Redován has two fixed containers for the removal of pruning and other waste, although the tender price does not include the treatment and disposal of waste assumed by the City Council.
The mayor has assured that “in addition to having the most advanced and modern machinery, the company must have a facility in Redován to make the cleaning of the municipality and the collection of waste more effective and have a direct contact with the citizens”. There will also be GPS control of all vehicles used for waste collection.
The council of the Treasury, Adrian Ballester, explained that the industrial benefit of this tender is quantified at 23.192,40 euros, “since the rest of the costs are the general costs of any company (payment of payroll, purchase of trucks, etc.). Ballester has assured that with this industrial benefit, 5% of the contract, “we do not assume any risk and all the responsibility for managing possible worker absences, accidents or vehicle breakages is transferred to the company”. In this sense, specialized companies “can also buy vehicles cheaper than the City Council, as they buy more”. The also first deputy mayor said that “our goal is to improve as much as we can a service, which is provided in the same conditions since 2003, so we will provide more hours of service, installation of dog bag dispensers, extra buckets or increase the number of containers.
Group participation
Redován’s government team has worked on the new urban waste collection and street cleaning contract with opposition groups. In this sense, there was a Board of Spokespersons in which the entire tender was explained. Afterwards, individualised meetings were called with each group where the opinions and suggestions of the different political groups were collected. These improvements have led to changes in the specifications so that they were consensual. The mayor, Nely Ruiz, has assured in this respect that “we are before one of the most important contracts of this legislature, for that reason we have needed the consensus of all to take out this tender, since the only thing that matters to us is the well-being of our neighbours, to improve their quality of life and to do it with total transparency”.
