‘Ballot Bins’ in Madrid: Bet on Champions’ League winner to keep streets clean
‘Ballot Bins’ in Madrid: Bet on Champions’ League winner to keep streets clean
MAYORESS of Madrid Manuela Carmena has set up cigarette-butt bins on the street which allow users to ‘bet’ on which team will win the Champions’ League.
One slot has the emblem for Real Madrid FC, and the other for Atlético de Madrid FC.
The novel ‘fantasy football’ wager serves an underlying useful purpose, however – Sra Carmena wanted to find a way of keeping the streets clean, and admits she has ‘scolded’ residents and visitors ‘on more than one occasion’ for dropping their cigarette ends on the ground rather than in a bin.
Her latest scheme comes a few months after a campaign which saw portable ashtrays being handed out in the street.
The idea was taken from the British ‘Ballot Bin’, whereby litter bins have been set up in London and other major cities to find out residents’ opinions on public matters based upon which slot they drop their waste in.
It is likely ‘Ballot Bins’ will have been set up all over the UK to find out how the public intends to vote in the forthcoming in/out referendum on European Union membership.
The bins in Madrid are in the process of being set up in the Cibeles Palace area on the C/ Bustamante and C/ Montalbán, as well as outside a major hospital and a bus station.
As the bins have been designed by the existing rubbish and recycling waste collection firm, Plastic-Omnium, they have not cost taxpayers anything, Sra Carmena reveals.
But the city council’s environment department is considering setting aside funds in the budget to extend ‘Ballot Bins’ to other parts of the metropolitan area and suburbs.
Madrid’s 64,000 street bins all have ashtrays to enable smokers to put out and dispose of their cigarettes without having to dump them on the ground.
