Sagunto neighbourhood recycling contest 2026: Ecovidrio rewards the district that mobilises most
Ecovidrio and Sagunto City Council pit the city's neighbourhoods against each other until 23 November to recycle more glass. The winner gets a treasure hunt and a concert.
To take part in the campaign, residents go to the website competicionentrebarrios.es, choose the neighbourhood where they live and forward the link by WhatsApp, email or social media. Each forward adds points for that neighbourhood in a public ranking that can be checked until 23 November, when the initiative ends. Ecovidrio and Sagunto City Council presented the campaign, called "Competición entre Barrios" (Competition between Neighbourhoods), on 21 October 2026, under the slogan "Have you taken the glass down?".
The goal is twofold. First, residents, shops, associations and other groups are asked to join forces to beat the town's 2025 glass packaging recycling figures. Second, the neighbourhoods compete with each other: the one that achieves the greatest mobilisation wins a festive day with a treasure hunt (yincana) and a concert lasting an hour and a half. The information released at the presentation does not give Sagunto's 2025 figures, nor the date or place of that day.
There are two ways into the website: the QR codes on the information materials, or the link forwarded by another person. Anyone who enters must state their neighbourhood before sharing, so the points go to the chosen area. A resident who receives the link on WhatsApp and forwards it to their contacts is already adding points.
To take the campaign to the street, two environmental information officers will tour the neighbourhoods and visit shops, bars, restaurants, markets and associations. Neighbourhood associations and owners' communities will also receive materials to share on their usual channels, and posters for building entrances, notice boards and common areas. Each poster carries the link and QR code of the corresponding neighbourhood.
The presentation was attended by the councillor for the Environment, Jorge Vidal, and by Ecovidrio's manager for the Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia, Manuel Sala. Both asked for the involvement of all residents and stressed that local shops, residents' associations and owners' communities are the ones who can take the proposal to the whole municipality, so that Sagunto beats its own record.
Ecovidrio is a collective extended producer responsibility scheme (SCRAP in Spanish): the companies that put packaging on the market finance 80% of the system, and the remaining 20% comes from selling the collected waste. The organisation describes itself as specialised in the separate collection of glass; the Packaging and Packaging Waste Act was passed in 1997 and its activity began in 1998. Nationally, the estimated glass packaging recycling rate reached 72.3% in 2025, with 1,042,834 tonnes recovered and about 300,000 containers spread across the country. That is the backdrop to a local challenge measured against Sagunto's own 2025 record.
This is not the first time Ecovidrio has approached Sagunto with a competition. According to elperiodic.com, which reported it on 17 June 2026, more than 155 hospitality businesses in the town took part last summer in the sixth edition of the Green Flag (Bandera Verde) campaign, a programme aimed at the hospitality sector, which, according to Ecovidrio, generates 50% of the glass waste put into circulation. The organisation's initiatives, among them the Green Flags, mobilised more than 13,300 establishments in several regions in 2022, including the Valencian Community. What sets this campaign apart is its audience: alongside bars and shops, it asks for the involvement of the residents of each neighbourhood.
According to Sagunto City Council, with additional data from Wikipedia and elperiodic.com.