From 2025, Spanish municipalities will have to apply a garbage service fees this will be entirely up to the citizens.
So far, according to OCU calculations in a 2021 report, each citizen was responsible, on average, for one 40% of the cost of garbage service. The rest was covered by councils from their general budget. But through Law 7/2022 of April 8 on waste and contaminated soil for a circular economy, the central government intends that next year the cost of the entire service will be passed on to citizens.
Thus, according to the same report from the consumer organization, the per capita payment for garbage service could increase up to 150% on average. A resident of a Spanish city already pays around 120 euros per year for this service. When the specific rate is applied, The annual cost would increase by 180 euros per person, with the final bill being around 300 euros..
The Government’s objective is that with the increase in the bill for services, each citizen is aware of the “real, direct and indirect cost” this involves waste collection, container cleaning, vehicle maintenance, personnel costs, waste processing and recycling. In this way, the Executive intends that each Spaniard pollutes less, based on the principle that he who pollutes pays.
Chaos in town halls
The Government justifies this tax in application of the European Directive 2018/851which urges member states to “use economic instruments and other measures” to achieve a recycling rate of 50% by 2030. But the community document does not require the application of a rate such as the one expected, but rather suggests it as one of the possible mechanisms.
It is therefore an initiative of the government, which translated the directive into a “specific, undifferentiated and non-deficit rate” within the framework of the aforementioned national law on waste and contaminated soil.
Last May, the first vice-president and minister of Finance, Maria Jesus Monterosent a circular to the municipal councils reminding that they must establish the tariff, at the latest, at the beginning of 2025. But the municipal corporations, less than three months from the start of the year, do not have clear guidelines on the application of the tax. They also don’t know how to introduce it in proportion to the waste produced by each neighbor, so they fear ending up paying only for sinners.
Cost per citizen
To calculate the per capita cost of the garbage service, some municipalities already use criteria such as the size of the dwelling, the consumption of liters of water or the cadastral value. But these parameters remain arbitrary: There is currently no way to calculate the number of trash bags produced by each citizen.and the rate would apply, as proposed, to everyone equally.
In addition, the objective of the tariff is to encourage recycling, which is why its application is aimed at those who use the “remaining” containers and do not recycle, making it even more difficult to differentiate pollution by inhabitant and per capita. how much should fall on each.
The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces opposes the application of this rate due to this arbitrary nature. According to authorized sources from the organization to this newspaper, the FEMP does not agree with the fact that the citizen must take charge of the entire service.
“It is based on a European directive which does not require a rate and the government establishes it unilaterally. There is no unified form of waste management, so each municipality manages it in its own wayThis is a municipal competition. There are no clear regulations, and even fewer guidelines on how to apply the rate,” the same sources point out.
The Oviedo town hall is the first to have anticipated the obligatory nature of this tax and in its 2025 tax ordinances it already provides for an increase in the 80% in the municipal waste rate. Other municipalities, such as those of Madrid, Málaga, Valladolid and Badajoz, will have to impose the rate from zero, since the garbage service was until now included in the property tax.
The cost per city
In addition, the application of the rate will vary depending on the city. According to the OCU report, in 2021, residents of San Sebastian already paid 190 euros per year; those of Jerez de la Frontera, 174; those of Girona, 165 and those of Barcelona 156. The cities where the cost of garbage service was lowest were Soria and Alicante, where the price was 30 euros.
If the expected increase of 150% on average is realized, a resident of San Sebastián will pay the colossal sum of 475 euros per year for waste collection in 2025, while that of Alicante will pay 75. The difference in costs between cities depends on the contracts each city has with the garbage collection company, which in many cases is external to the municipality.
Until now, other cities like Barcelona, San Sebastian, Girona, Lérida or La Coruña They gave bonuses to citizens who used clean pointsas an alternative to the application of a compulsory tax which will make life much more expensive in all Spanish cities.
