Sagunto brings recycling advice to the Sagunto and Puerto de Sagunto markets in September
The council's 'Mirada Circular' (Circular Outlook) campaign will set up a recycling information point at Sagunto's market this Wednesday, and at the Puerto de Sagunto market on 24 September, to explain how to sort waste correctly.
Sagunto City Council's Environment Department is continuing its Mirada Circular ('Circular Outlook') campaign throughout September, a long-running initiative aimed at raising residents' awareness of the benefits of correctly sorting packaging waste at home and putting it in the right containers — in particular the yellow container used for plastics, cans and cartons. Throughout the month, a team of environmental educators from the Mediterranean Institute for Sustainable Development (Imedes, a regional sustainability body) will run the Recicla por el clima ('Recycle for the Climate') action in public spaces, designed to get residents directly involved in the circular economy model the council has promoted through several editions of this same campaign.
Taking advantage of the crowds that gather on market days in the town's two main population centres, the Imedes team will explain good waste-sorting practices to any interested residents, answering specific questions about which materials belong in which container. The action also includes a broader awareness element, explaining the environmental benefits of recycling as a tool against climate change, beyond simple household waste management.
The first of the two sessions takes place this Wednesday, 16 September, at Sagunto's market, while the second will be held on Thursday, 24 September, at the Puerto de Sagunto market. Both run from 9.30am to 12.30pm, during which the environmental educators will staff a visible information point, helping both people with specific questions and anyone who simply wants to learn more about the town's selective waste-collection system.
With these two actions, the Environment Department is keeping up a September campaign designed to bring the circular economy model closer to residents through informational activities in high-footfall spaces. Market days are used deliberately, since the flow of shoppers allows the campaign to reach a wide and varied audience without organising a separate event or relying on residents coming to a fixed information point on their own.
The Mirada Circular campaign is not a one-off action but one of the Environment Department's ongoing lines of work, combining information points like September's with other awareness activities aimed at different audiences throughout the year, from schools to residents' associations, all sharing the same goal of making waste sorting a normal everyday habit. Choosing the municipal markets as the setting is no accident: these are spaces of daily consumption closely tied to single-use packaging -bags, trays, bottles- making them a natural place to reinforce the message about what to do with that material once it has been used.
The underlying challenge the campaign addresses goes beyond Sagunto. According to data regularly cited by the Generalitat Valenciana on waste management, a large share of the packaging that should end up in the yellow container still gets mixed in with general waste, reducing the efficiency of recycling plants and driving up the cost of the region's whole waste-management system. Improving that source-sorting rate is therefore a goal shared by many towns across the Valencian Community, not just for environmental reasons but economic ones too, since councils face financial penalties when recycling rates fall short of the minimums required under European and regional regulations. Against that backdrop, initiatives like Recicla por el clima aim to act directly on household behaviour, where much of the problem originates.
The Environment Department has said that, if the response from residents at the markets is positive, it does not rule out repeating this kind of information campaign at other high-footfall spots around the town over the coming year, extending the reach of the Mirada Circular campaign beyond the two sessions planned for September.
Anyone unable to visit either information point can still check the most common questions about waste sorting through the council website and its citizen-service channels.
The campaign's next stop at the Puerto de Sagunto market will close out the calendar planned for this September.
The initiative is part of the council's wider effort to improve the town's recycling rates, at a time when correctly sorting packaging at source — plastics, cans and cartons for the yellow container — remains one of the main challenges for waste management across the Valencian Community. According to Sagunto City Council, with additional background from El Periódico de Aquí.