Castalla Town Council promotes the defence of the environment during the Moors and Christians

• The ‘Glass Reconquest’ campaign includes the installation of containers next to the festival venues to facilitate the recovery of packaging and awareness-raising by environmental educators

Castalla Town Council has collaborated in the launch of the campaign ‘The Reconquest of Glass’ to promote awareness and recycling of glass containers during the festivities of Moors and Christians 2022, which will take place between 1 and 4 September. The initiative, promoted by Ecovidrio, also has the collaboration of the Generalitat Valenciana, to develop it in many municipalities that celebrate festive parades.

The aim of this proposal is to instil in the citizens of Castellón the importance of selectively separating glass packaging waste during the festivities, but also throughout the year. In this way, the Consistory is going to focus especially on the comparsas. Thus, in the framework of ‘La Reconquista del Vidrio’ containers decorated with the image of the campaign will be distributed in the vicinity of the festive headquarters to facilitate the recycling of containers.

For her part, the councillor for the Environment, Asun Vera, stressed “the importance of this type of awareness-raising and recycling initiatives among the population on important days such as the fiestas, when these aspects are often relegated to the background”. In this sense, the councillor pointed out that “the direct intervention actions of ‘La Reconquista del Vidrio’ will help the festival-goers of Castalla to have more information and contribute to recycling during the Moors and Christians, when a large amount of packaging is consumed”.

In addition, during the 1st and 2nd of September, environmental educators will inform about the importance of recycling glass to the population. The professionals will explain the environmental benefits of this practice and will collaborate with the comparsas in the recycling work to motivate the festive men and women, who will be given a mask-holder as a gift.

In the 2022 edition of ‘La Reconquista del Vidrio’ (The Glass Reconquest) some thirty municipalities of the Valencian Community are taking part. Castalla is taking part in the Darbukas category, which includes municipalities with between 1,000 and 2,500 festival-goers.

Data on glass recycling in Castalla
According to the latest available data from Castalla, corresponding to the year 2021, the citizens of the town recycle a total of 199,816 kilograms of glass containers. This means that each person recycled an average of 18.6 kilograms of glass. Regarding the rate of containerisation, Castalla has an average of 176 inhabitants per container, with a total of 61 igloos for glass container waste currently installed in the municipality.