The map that exposes the dirt of Almeida's Madrid: 410 neighborhood complaints and Puente de Vallecas at the top

Madrid has had a public map of its trash since this week. The municipal political platform Independientes por Madrid has launched 'Madrid está sucio', a tool that already accumulates 410 neighborhood alerts about cleaning problems and has received photographs from 20 of the capital's 21 districts.

The portal allows users to upload an image, locate it in a district, and classify the problem among overflowing containers or wastebaskets, abandoned belongings, bags left out after hours, unwashed streets, rubble, excrement, pests, or neglected gardens. Communications are anonymous and undergo a prior review to verify that the photographs show waste and respect people's privacy.

The incidents will remain visible until the municipal elections in May 2027, even if the photographed problem has been subsequently removed. The platform explains that it seeks to build an archive on the state of the streets during José Luis Martínez-Almeida's mandate, although its records lack municipal validation and do not necessarily equate to incidents that are still open.

Puente de Vallecas concentrates more than a third of the alerts

The so-called 'Ranking de la Vergüenza' (Ranking of Shame) places Puente de Vallecas in first position with 146 records, more than one out of every three alerts received so far. At a considerable distance appear Centro, with 44; Carabanchel, with 40; Usera, with 35; and Tetuán, with 32. The five districts gather almost three-quarters of all contributions.

The list reflects the activity of the website's users and should be read with caution. A district with more photographs is not automatically the dirtiest in Madrid, as the result depends on knowledge of the platform and the degree of participation of residents in each neighborhood. Its usefulness lies in locating specific problems and checking where certain complaints are repeated.

Independientes por Madrid links the portal's creation to Línea Madrid's decision to stop processing direct alerts via X starting in January 2026. The City Council maintains other official channels, such as the 010 phone number and the 'Avisos Madrid' application, but the promoters believe that complaints have lost public visibility by being separated within the municipal system.

"Cleanliness knows no sides. It is the primary municipal service and the one that all people evaluate every morning when leaving home," defended Marta Higueras, spokesperson for Independientes por Madrid and former deputy mayor during Manuela Carmena's term. The leader maintains that the page aims to record what the City Council "is not seeing or not addressing."

The most expensive contract in the municipal budget

The map appears amidst a discussion about the future of the service. The current public space cleaning contract was awarded in 2021 for 1,636.4 million euros distributed in six lots, approximately 282 million annually. Its ordinary period ends on October 31, 2027, and includes a possible two-year extension.

Independientes por Madrid demands that the next municipal government discard this extension and prepare a new tender with public objectives per district, verifiable response times, and effective penalties for companies that fail to comply. The party uses the platform to bolster its first programmatic proposal for the 2027 elections, so the portal combines neighborhood participation and political strategy.

To that expense, its promoters add the nearly 296 million annual euros foreseen through the Waste Management Fee, whose estimated average receipt for 2026 reaches 142.6 euros per dwelling. The tax continues to be applied while the judicial front opened after the High Court of Justice of Madrid annulled the 2025 ordinance due to substantial defects during its processing is resolved.

Almeida's Government has not yet released a specific response to the new map. The mayor did acknowledge months ago that cleanliness had "worsened" and was below desired standards, after which he announced 300 additional workers and a 24-hour brigade. He also attributed a large part of the problem to uncivil behavior and non-compliance with schedules by some businesses.

Borja Carabante, municipal head of Environment, has defended that Madrid has 3,000 more workers than in 2019 and that waste collection has multiplied. Against this official balance, the first 410 photographs will remain exposed on the map until the elections, when the new city government must decide whether to maintain the current cleaning contract until 2029.