Until 10:30 a.m. today, Funchal City Council had removed around 12 tons of garbage generated by the New Year’s Eve celebrations, the municipality said, noting that this is four tons less than last year.
“Last year, at the same time, there was more garbage, which means that this year, the people of Madeira and Funchal produced less waste, around 12 tons,” explained the mayor (PSD/CDS-PP), Pedro Calado, quoted in a statement.
The clean-up operation, which will continue throughout today, involves 123 municipal workers, including drivers, stewards, foremen and service managers, and around 20 vehicles.
“Yesterday [Sunday], the municipality had teams circulating in downtown and central Funchal before the fireworks, as well as service teams at the city’s main viewpoints, in addition to a reinforcement of containers,” the statement said.
Thousands of people, spread out in different parts of Funchal’s bay and amphitheatre, watched the traditional fireworks display that marked New Year’s Eve in Madeira, in which around 20,000 tons of explosive material were detonated, on a night when hotel occupancy in Madeira was around 100% and the floating population on land was estimated at around 60,000 people.
The festivities and street entertainment that marked the arrival of the new year lasted throughout the night in various parts of the Madeiran capital.
The city council’s forecasts point to a reduction of four tons of waste compared to the previous year, a situation that social democrat Pedro Calado considered positive, given the large number of people in the city, highlighting the “greater environmental awareness and civic-mindedness on the part of people”.
“For the future, the municipality’s intention is to reduce the amount of New Year’s Eve waste even further, with the use of reusable cups being one of the measures to be considered,” the statement reads.
As a result of the pyrotechnic show and the festivities, the Funchal municipality recorded 18 incidents up to 01:00 today, all of which were minor, including eight small fires caused by the fire and 10 road accidents.