Why have 2,000 rubbish containers been left on a hill near the A-7 motorway on the Costa del Sol?

The environmental eyesore first surprised hikers and people who frequent the area who have since shared the images on social media

Lorena Cádiz

Benalmádena

Wednesday, 22 January 2025, 13:25

Some 2,000 bins have been abandoned on a municipal plot of land on the slopes of the Benalmádena mountain, above the A-7 motorway.

It's another chapter in the change of concessionary company for the rubbish collection service in Benalmádena. Last summer the new company, FCC, landed in the municipality and signed a contract with town hall to take over the service for ten years at a cost of approximately eight million euros a year. Until then, Urbaser had been responsible for the rubbish collection.

The transfer between the two companies was not a seamless one because as soon as the contract changed hands, Urbaser claimed the fleet of vehicles were theirs and that they would take them. On the other hand, the council said they owned the vehicles.

During the litigation process, the vehicles were immobilised and parked on a municipal plot in Benalmádena Pueblo and remain there. This situation jeopardised the collection of rubbish in the town during the summer months, as the agreement with the new concessionaire did not include the automatic arrival of such a volume of vehicles, but rather a progressive incorporation of new vehicles, which were to be added to the old fleet and whose arrival had to be accelerated due to numerous complaints from residents over the rubbish collection service.

Now comes a new chapter with the bins where the previous ones used when Urbaser ran the service were located on a municipal plot of land on the slopes of the Benalmádena mountain, above the A-7 motorway. The eyesore first surprised hikers and people who frequent the area who have since shared the images on social media.

Some of the bins can also be seen from the motorway. It is estimated that there may be as many as 2,000 of them accumulated on the site, where they are left out in the open.

"Looking for a provisional location"

According to Benalmádena councillor Juan Olea, this is because these bins "are the old ones that were placed on the public highways and have been replaced by the new ones in the current contract". Olea said the council is looking for a provisional location, "but there is no suitable municipal facility" for them, so they decided to move them to the land above the motorway temporarily.

"The current location is due to the fact that we do not have adequate space for the deposit of this number of items. Before moving them, we consulted with municipal technicians who, due to the characteristics and circumstances of a situation in which they had to be removed from the public highways as soon as possible, saw no impediment to the provisional deposit," the councillor said. "The condition of the items is checked daily by those responsible for inspecting the service and the company responsible," Olea added.

Waste collection vehicles

The situation arose because, as with the waste collection vehicles which are still parked on the Benalmádena Pueblo plot, "they cannot be transferred or decommissioned until the closure of the settlements agreed between the town hall and the previous concessionary company," the councillor said. In other words, both parties have reached an agreement whereby the council will have to pay the company an amount, which for the moment has not been made public and which cannot be paid out until the new municipal budget comes into force, which is expected to happen in the next few weeks.

When this procedure and payment are completed, the council can dispose of the bins at will. The councillor pointed out the council and said that "the current contract drawn up by the previous corporation did not reflect the obligation to remove these bins and assume their removal or recycling" by the company in charge of the service.

It remains to be seen how these bins will be disposed of once they are in the hands of the council. Some, due to their poor condition, will be sent for destruction, but for the moment the town hall's intentions for the rest are unknown. "It is the will of this council to remove them as soon as possible," Olea said.

'Environmental attack'

Meanwhile, the Socialist's secretary general in Benalmádena, Víctor Navas, described the eyesore as an "environmental attack" and accused the council of "accumulating rubbish" in "natural spaces that we have preserved for years".

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