/ Town Hall
Monday, 20th February 2023
The awards for excellence in the management of municipal selective collection of paper and cardboard for recycling
The 7th edition of Pajaritas Azules rewards Calvià, in addition to two other Town Halls of the Balearic Islands, for its commitment to paper and cardboard recycling
• The awards ceremony was held at an event headed by Mr. Ignacio de Domingo, deputy secretary of the Ministry of Territorial Policy, Mrs. Margarita Ruiz, deputy director deneral of Circular Economy of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, and Mr. Eduardo Querol, president of ASPAPEL.
• The three awarded local entities in the Balearic Islands have obtained 3 Pajaritas Azules and they are: Calvià Town Hall - CALVIÀ 2000, Palma Town Hall - EMAYA and the Consorci de Residus i Energia de Menorca.
• Nationwide, the Programme has awarded 46 Town Halls for their commitment to paper and cardboard recycling.
• Spain has become the second country in the European Union with the highest rate of paper and cardboard recycling.
The 7th edition of the ASPAPEL Pajaritas Azules Programme has awarded recognition for the excellence of its management in the selective collection for the recycling of paper and cardboard to 3 local entities (Town Halls and groups of municipalities) of the Balearic Islands. Of the group of awarded local entities, all of them have obtained the maximum recognition with three Pajaritas Azules.
These awards are granted based on the evaluation of 21 annual indicators that analyse all aspects related to the collection of the blue container and complementary collections, information campaigns and citizen awareness, regulation and management planning, as well as collection rates and traceability.
During the event, a video summary of the awareness-raising actions carried out by local entities within the framework of the “La Voz del Reciclaje”(The Voice of Recycling) campaign was also screened, aimed at showing citizens the best practices in the field of paper recycling.
The Pajaritas Azules award ceremony was headed by Mr. Ignacio de Domingo, deputy secretary of the Ministry of Territorial Policy, Mrs. Margarita Ruiz, deputy director general of Circular Economy of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, and Mr. Eduardo Querol, president of ASPAPEL, who has highlighted that "the high recycling rates, which are close to 80%, make clear that citizens trust paper and cardboard products and packaging and actively participate in closing the cycle, extending the life of cellulose fibers”.
On behalf of Calvià, the deputy mayor for Transparency, Innovation and Economic Services and president of Calvià 2000, Marcos Pecos, received the recognition.
According to ASPAPEL forecasts, in 2022 4.4 million tons of used paper and cardboard have been collected selectively in our country and 5 million tons have been recycled. These data continue to position this industry as a benchmark in Europe, making Spain the second country in the European Union with the highest rate of paper and cardboard recycling.
The ASPAPEL Pajaritas Azules programme has also granted recognition to another 43 local entities spread throughout Spain.
Balearic town hall committed to blue recycling
In the commitment to blue recycling, the three award-winning Town Halls in the Balearic Islands have obtained three 'pajaritas' and they are: Calvià Town Hall - CALVIÀ 2000, Palma Town Hall - EMAYA and the Menorca Waste and Energy Consortium.
An increasingly demanding Programme
With 7 years of history, Pajaritas Azules is an annual programme of advice, evaluation and recognition of the quality of the municipal management of selective collection for the recycling of paper and cardboard focused on continuous improvement.
Since each year the Programme is more demanding, in order to maintain or progress in category, the entities that participate in Pajaritas Azules have to develop an improvement plan. This is the case, for example, of Calvià Town Hall, which maintains the three Pajaritas Azules consecutively this year, thanks to the great efforts in collecting paper and cardboard waste from small businesses and restaurants located at the beachfront.
Along the same lines, Palma Town Hall has also maintained the three Pajaritas Azules, as it did last year, for its efforts in the service and in the door-to-door collection campaigns from small paper and cardboard businesses. And the Consorci de Residus i Energia de Menorca for their successful control procedures carried out in the paper and cardboard recovery plants.
Along with these actions, it is important to continue developing a constant improvement plan to be able to exceed the upward scale of each of its twenty-one indicators. To achieve this, Pajaritas Azules activates a specific method of action and technical advice for each participant.
Similarly, the quality of the material collected is an essential element for the circular economy of paper and decarbonisation. For this reason, in order to opt to be recognised with any of the three levels of Pajaritas Azules, it is necessary to have a quality control and improvement procedure and that the average amount of unsuitable waste, those wastes that are deposited incorrectly in a container, be at least equal to or less than 10% dry weight.
As a result, the local entities that stand out each year for their excellence obtain one, two or three Pajaritas Azules, according to an objective scale based on the results obtained in the evaluation.
