A green light has been given to the municipal public company that will manage the municipal solid waste collection and street cleaning service in Orihuela.

Last Tuesday, the governing board established the new management of Surpal (Urbanizing Society of the Puente Alto de Orihuela Industrial Park), which has been without any activity since 2015. It has now been formally given the new task, that of dealing with waste management in the town.

The service has been municipalised since 2012 and now this public company model will be assumed as is the case in a number of other municipalities, such as Guardamar. It is still to be decided, however, pending the results of various reports, whether the management will be 100% public, with resources only from the City Council, as until now, or whether mixed management will be chosen, with the entry of a private company. It is the most costly service that a city council operates

The council has appointed the municipal representatives of this public company which will be chaired by the mayor, Pepe Vegara, who will be joined by eight councillors, one from each political group (PP, Vox, PSOE, Ciudadanos and Cambiemos) and three others who will appointed by the government board, controlled by PP and Vox.

For the PP, there will be the councillor of Urban Solid Waste and Street Cleaning, Rocío Ortuño; for Vox, the councillor for the Coast, Manuel Mestre ; for the PSOE, councillor Isidro Grao ; Cs will have councillor José Aix and for Cambiemos Orihuela, councillor Leticia Pertegal .

The three other designated members are all current advisors to the government team: Dámaso Aparicio, advisor to the Department of MSW and Cleaning, Emilio Fernández and Rubén Rodríguez.

The term of office of the members of the council is four years, although they can be relieved by agreement of the General Meeting. Reports are now being requested before making the decision whether the service is 100% public management or mixed and when it’s operation will begin.

The former councillor for waste, Damaso Aparicio, is now a municipal advisor