There are streets in Madrid that are swept every day. In others, cleaning services come only once a week. The frequency with which they are cleaned has been marked three years ago in the contract that the Madrid City Council awarded to five large companies and which will extend until 2027, with a planned expenditure of more than 1.6 billion euros.
The map of the cleaning of public spaces presents streets in four shades of color, according to their scheduled service levels. The dark green ones (level 1) are the ones that are cleaned the most. They include hand sweeping and washing of the roads five times a week (three of them from Monday to Friday, in addition to those on Saturday and Sunday), in addition to daily maintenance sweeping. On the official map, which we display under these lines, they tend to be the busiest (Castellana, Fuencarral, Centro district… although others are also included, such as the office area with fewer people, near Plaza de Castilla).
For the roads marked in light blue (level 2), the City Council sweeps 3 times a week, from Monday to Sunday, on days when they are not cleaned with water, which must happen another 3 times a week on days alternate. Maintenance sweeping is also planned from Monday to Sunday in the districts of Centro, Chamberí, Tetuán, Arganzuela, Retiro, Salamanca and Chamartín and three times a week in the rest of the capital.
The pale orange streets (level 3), distributed mainly in neighborhoods outside the M-30, are only cleaned once a week with water and sweepers pass through them one day out of every two. Finally, the brown ones (level 4) record a manual sweep once a week and cleaning with water once a month. What is indicated on the map published below meets the minimum service concessions set by the Madrid City Council, which must ensure that the successful bidder companies comply with these conditions.
Source: Madrid City Council
As for the neighborhoods that are cleaned the most, the best cared for are those of Gaztambide (Chamberí), Sol (Centro), Ibiza (Retiro) and Castillejos (Tetuán), according to a compilation made by this newspaper, in which they are also privileged other neighborhoods in the central area such as Lista or Goya (Salamanca), Arapiles (Chamberí) or Cuatro Caminos (Tetuán).
As for the places with the least cleaning frequency, the neighborhoods of El Cañaveral (Vicálvaro), Cuatro Vientos (Latina), El Goloso or Fuentelarreina (Fuencarral-El Pardo) stand out at the bottom. San Fermín and Orcasur (Usera) also appear on the list.
Regarding cleaning by district, it seems clear that Centro and Chamberí are the places in the city with the highest cleaning frequencies, followed by Ciudad Lineal. Meanwhile, Latina, Barajas and Fuencarral-El Pardo are at the bottom of the list.
Does the income of the population influence when it comes to having more or less weekly cleaning? According to the compilation prepared by this newspaper, it seems not, since rich areas such as Castellana or Recoletos have the same frequencies as more humble neighborhoods such as San Diego, in Vallecas, or San Cristóbal.
The cleaning contracts were awarded in the summer of 2021 to five large companies – most of them construction companies – but litigation and claims filed by the non-awarded companies delayed their entry into force for several months. They cost 1,636,419,788.82 euros (taxes included) over the six-year contract, a figure that includes a total renewal of the machinery, with the majority of non-polluting vehicles, some 2,500 more operators and a new image, with uniforms of a lighter color and the Madrid 360 logo – the signature of Almeida’s environmental strategy – printed on clothing and devices.
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