Sagunto's PP party calls for review of waste tax after Bétera court ruling
The PP party in Sagunto is demanding a legal and financial review of the town's waste tax, currently 111 euros per home, after Spain's Supreme Court rejected a similar ordinance's appeal in nearby Bétera.
The People's Party (PP) in Sagunto wants the town's waste tax ordinance reviewed. The fee, currently 111 euros a year per occupied home, is being questioned after Spain's Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the Bétera council (a town near Valencia) against a ruling that struck down its own waste tax. PP councillors are asking Sagunto's legal, financial and tax departments to check whether the local system is properly justified and whether residents are being charged what the law actually allows.
The legal basis PP cites is Article 24.2 of Spain's Local Finance Law, which states that a tax cannot, overall, exceed the real or foreseeable cost of the service it funds. According to a report by eldiario.es (a Spanish news outlet) in August 2026, it was precisely a poorly justified technical and economic report that led the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (the region's highest court) to strike down Bétera's ordinance, a decision the Supreme Court later upheld by rejecting the council's appeal. The ruling also noted that the cancelled tax charged every home the same fee regardless of size, official value or number of residents; Compromís (a Valencian left-wing party) estimated at the time that Bétera will have to refund around 5 million euros wrongly collected.
PP councillor Sara Cañada argues the proposal does not assume Sagunto's ordinance is illegal, but says it is worth checking whether it is properly justified and whether there is room to adjust it. She says her group simply wants municipal technical staff to report back and, if there is room to correct the fee, to do so, so residents pay an amount calculated with rigour. PP also links the fee rise to residents' complaints about cleanliness in several parts of town, arguing that a bigger financial demand should come with a service to match.
The rise in waste fees is not unique to Sagunto. Spain's circular economy waste law, in force since 2022, requires the fee to reflect the real cost of the service, covering not just collection and treatment but also inspection of facilities, maintenance and awareness campaigns. It is this national mandate, rather than a decision taken in isolation by the local council, that explains the general rise in waste fees across Valencian towns since 2025.
In Sagunto, the bill rose from 52 to 111 euros between 2024 and 2025, a 114% increase, according to the municipal figures PP cites. That rise did not come out of nowhere: in June 2025, according to the council itself at the time, every municipal party, including PP, unanimously agreed to review the waste fee ahead of 2026 and to keep collection 100% publicly run, cutting back on private subcontracting where possible. PP's current request therefore comes more than a year after that shared commitment, in a different context now shaped by the Bétera court precedent.
Despite the rise, the ordinance in force since 2026 offers discounts of up to 40% for recycling. Most of that discount, up to 30%, comes from collecting points on the Palancia Belcaire Consortium card by using the ecopark and the town's mobile recycling points; using the home bulky-waste collection service and handing in used cooking oil each add a further 5%. These are the concrete ways a Sagunto resident can cut the 111-euro fee today, without waiting for the review PP is asking for.
The proposal was due to be debated at the full council session planned for this Thursday, but the session was postponed because of the red rain alert declared across the Valencian Community, so the debate is now pending for the next session. If the council backs the initiative, the findings of the legal, financial and tax review will determine whether the fee should change before the next budget year. According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional data from Spain's Official State Gazette (BOE), La Moncloa, eldiario.es and Sagunto City Council.