Critics have slammed a new City Hall plan that will punish the poor who rummage through rubbish bins as “cruel and ridiculous.”
Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri announced this week that he has ordered the local Security Ministry and Police to act against those who remove “rubbish from skips, making our city dirty.”
Macri said that sanctions under regulations in force should be applied against such individuals, who are mostly poor. The fines could range as high as 900,000 pesos, he confirmed.
“I gave the order to the Security Ministry and City Police that, if they find anyone removing rubbish from skips making our city dirty, to demand them to clean and tidy up everything immediately. If they refuse, they should be sanctioned according to applicable regulations,” said Jorge Macri.
The new policy was fiercely criticised by opponents. UCR/Evolución City caucus leader Manuela Thourte described it as “cruel, ridiculous and unrealistic.”
“Urban disorder is solved through proper management: improving collection, adding recyclers to the system, and supporting people who today have no other option,” she argued.
Former City Human Development & Habitat minister María Migliore declared that “dehumanisation is complete.”
“Perhaps you could ask yourself why there are people rummaging through rubbish and offer a solution,” she asked Mayor Macri.
Left-wing Partido Obrero local deputy Gabriel Solano said his party would introduce a bill to annul the mayoral resolution, accusing the administration of "persecuting" those "condemned by the social critics to rummage through rubbish.”
Shameful decision
Macri and his communications team announced the policy by reminding residents of the nation’s capital that Article 94 of the City Misdemeanours Code on “Soiling property” provides that: “Anyone who stains or soils by any medium public or private property shall be sanctioned with one to fifteen days of community service or 81 to 1,217 fixed fine units.”
“The sanction shall be twice as much when the action is conducted from a motor vehicle or on statues, monuments, places of worship, education centres and hospitals, public buildings or sites, underground or train stations and carriages,” the statute adds.
In addition, “in case the property should be private, the action depends on a private complaint, except in the case of places of worship.” There are 33,045 skips in this City: 28.456 are black and grey and 4,589 are green.
In order to reinforce hygiene and prevent any refuse in the street, the Buenos Aires City Hall has already completed the installation of 7,000 anti-vandalism skips. The new models add a spring lid which helps bags fall directly in without anyone being able to remove them.
In the first half of the year, from January to June, 25,546 skips were vandalised, at an average of over 4,200 per month. The City Hall detects vandalism cases by street control officials and also in response to complaints by locals.
In most cases, skips could be repaired by replacing such parts as pedals, lids or tensors. Yet there were also skips which were broken or totally destroyed.
In turn, anti-vandalism skips were distributed in locations with the highest number of reports on rubbish issues.
They have a “mailbox” type system, which enables rubbish to go in, but it does not come out. It also prevents spillage and makes it difficult for people to go in. It further prevents bulky refuse which may damage skips and obstruct them.
– TIMES/PERFIL/NA
Comments