Two years ago, for the first time, cortijo owners in Motril received a rubbish-collection tax through their letter box – they were not impressed.
They argued that nobody collected their rubbish from in front of their homes, as is the case in the town itself, so why should they pay for a service that they don’t enjoy?
The Town Hall answered that the rubbish ended up being collected by the municipal rubbish collectors just the same, as cortijo owners take it to the nearest collection point. In other words, cortijos produce rubbish but their owners do not dispose of it without using the municipal service.
Now, we’re talking about 2,500 dwellings, so we’re not looking at a couple of Mercadona bags stuffed with household refuse, but tonnes of rubbish every week, even taking into account that most cortijos are not habitually occupied but are used on weekends.
But what really upset cortijo owners was not the fact that they would have to pay, but that they would have to pay arrears: 2013, 2014 and 2015, as well as the actual year, 2016.
As you can imagine the proverbial fan was distributing more than the air current and, not surprisingly, the Councillor in charge promised to change things, firstly by improving rubbish collection and secondly, by slowly reducing the tax burden by charging according to how much rubbish cortijos produced on an individual level.
Now, two years later, things are happening. A private company will handle the rubbish collection from cortijos. The Town Hall put the contract up for bidding and if nothing goes wrong, the service will be operative by Christmas.
Rubbish will be collected from Monday to Friday (until now is was only three days a week) by three employees. Large rubbish, such as old white goods, bed frames, etc, will be collected on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The employees will also be charged with keeping the hoppers washed out so that they don’t smell.
There has also been a big increase in collection points, growing from the nine presently in use to a total of 41 using a total of at least 90 hoppers.
Where? On the Canal-Puntalón road where there was only one collection point there will be nine. La Garnatilla will have three collections points, El Colorao-Llano de la Garnatilla another three and Tablones, which had one, will now have eight.
As for the area of Los Coscurros there will be two collections points and in Las Zorreras there will seven. Finally, Camino Minasierra and the Camino de las Algaidas will have a collection point.
Price? The majority of cortijos (1,800) will see their rubbish-collection tax reduced from 120 euros to just 75 euros.
(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)