Some Hot Rubbish
Police take action after eight plastic “wheelie bins” have been set alight. There are indications that striking refuse collectors may be setting the fires.
The few dustbin men of Marbella who are reporting for duty are doing their work under police guard this week, after a spate of arsen attacks on plastic “wheelie bins”. These events are taking place against the background of a refuse collectors’ strike.
The City Hall’s Department of Public Safety has announced that the first night of the strike was accompanied by four separate fires involving eight public containers, all in the Torres Murciano district.
Marbella’s local police have issued a press statement alleging that they have details of a car whose occupants are the probable arsenists. The car is said to have fled the scene at speed when local police attended one of the blazes. Since the policia local have only very limited powers of arrest, the details of the suspicious vehicle have been passed to the National Police Corps.
The people of Marbella have woken up friday 4 December to the sight and smell of uncollected garbage. In Spain, most people deposit their rubbish in communal bins on street corners, so just about every residential area is being affected by the binmen’s strike. A last-ditch attempt at negotiation failed last night when mayoress Angeles Muñoz was unable to come to terms with the union officials.
Señora Muñoz is refusing to pay the rubbish collectors an automatic salary rise.
A “skeleton” service is being maintained, but this is entirely inadequate to deal with the mounting threat to public health. Indeed, the handful of workers who are still clearing rubbish are now being guarded by the police, lest the arsenists are in some way politically motivated against “blackleg” binmen.
Marbella now faces the prospect of rubbish piling up over the long bank holiday weekend (Monday and Tuesday are non-working days). However, the mayoress is adamant. “We’re very sorry,” she said last night, “but we’re not making any further concessions.”
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