The Rosselló City Council has imposed almost forty sanctions so far this year on people from other towns for leaving waste in the municipality's containers. The majority of offenders come from Alguaire and, to a lesser extent, from Almenar, two towns where garbage collection operates with the door-to-door system.
The paradox for the municipality is that the control comes from outside and the cost too. Rosselló decided to start fining at the end of 2023 after detecting that it removes more than a ton of waste abandoned by residents of other towns each year, especially in the non-recyclable fraction containers.
Rosselló fines waste from residents of other municipalities 300 euros
The amount of each sanction is 300 euros and can increase up to 1,000 euros in case of recidivism, although so far the council has not detected any repeat cases. Before processing the fines, the city council had issued prior warnings.
In addition to the brigade staff, two municipal agents participate in the inspection of bags that appear outside the containers to try to identify those responsible. The reinforcement focuses on locating people who come from other municipalities to leave their waste there.
When these behaviors are detected, agents use PDA readers to identify vehicle drivers and subsequently send them the sanction notification.
The municipality removed more than a ton of foreign waste annually
The pressure is concentrated mainly on the non-recyclable waste containers, which are the ones that have accumulated the largest amount of waste abandoned by people who do not live in Rosselló. The city council estimated this volume at over a ton annually before activating the sanctioning regime at the end of 2023.
Alguaire appears as the main origin of the offenders and Almenar is in second place. Both municipalities share the door-to-door system, a model that has led the Rosselló council to reinforce surveillance in its container areas.
Regarding control tools, Joan Andreu Urbano, mayor of Rosselló, demanded more regulatory margin for city councils and stated that the Generalitat de Catalunya should be more permissive so that municipalities could install video surveillance cameras.
Until now, the city council has not applied any fines of 1,000 euros, since the almost forty sanctions processed so far this year correspond to infractions without detected recidivism.