Santa Cruz Launches Smart Organic Bins Amid 50% Waste Fee Hike

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is preparing for a major upgrade to its waste management system. Soon, new brown bins will be introduced specifically for collecting organic food waste. The City Council plans to start rolling out these bins between May and July this year, a key step to meet European and national rules on recycling and using resources more efficiently.

Around 4,000 of these new bins will be placed across the city's five districts. This means the 400 similar bins already in use in the Salud-La Salle and Centro-Ifara areas will be removed. The new bins will feature a modern opening system: instead of a traditional key, residents will use a personal magnetic card or a mobile app. This technology will also track the exact amount of waste each person deposits.

The city is investing 3 million euros in this project, which will come from its own budget for 2026. This is because of a previous issue: the City Council had to return 3.6 million euros from European Next Generation funds. These funds were originally meant for this purpose but were rejected by legal and auditing teams. As a result, the current cleaning contract with the company Valoriza has been modified. It will now run until the end of 2027 and will include managing the new bins and buying special collection trucks. The contract also increases how often bins are cleaned, from three times a month to nine times a month.

The introduction of organic bins coincides with a 50% increase in the municipal waste fee for this year. City officials state this increase is required by the central government. However, collecting this higher fee has been postponed until September. The local government has also announced that residents who use the new brown bins correctly will receive tax bonuses. This aims to encourage people to separate their waste and reduce their environmental impact. The plan is to place one organic waste bin at every existing "collection island" in the city.

The brown bins are designed for food waste such as vegetable, meat, and fish scraps, as well as coffee and tea grounds. Properly separating this waste will reduce the amount going into the grey bins, which are for general rubbish. This is important because treating and moving general rubbish to the Tenerife Environmental Park (PIRS) represents a significant cost for the city.