City announces new rubbish collection measures for festive season.

Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri on Tuesday unveiled new-look rubbish bins which will be placed along streets across the capital in the coming months.

The city will install 18,500 of the new bins around Rome between May and December, tripling the total number of bins on the streets of the capital.

The new bins - the latest in a series of street bins introduced in recent years - are designed to look like the older cast-iron cestoni but are made of recycled plastic.

The new bin "combines aesthetics, uniformity and safety, also compared to models of the past that were not particularly successful" - Gualtieri said - "and will bring uniformity because they will be the same throughout the city''.

Presentati in Campidoglio il Piano Operativo #AMA per le Festività Natalizie e il nuovo cestone per #Roma. pic.twitter.com/ixvytPqmbO

— Roberto Gualtieri (@gualtierieurope) December 5, 2023

The last time new street bins were introduced, almost three years ago under former mayor Virginia Raggi, they were compared by Romans to funeral urns.

The amphora-shaped bins were brought in to replace the hanging bag variety which in turn had been introduced several years earlier for security reasons related to anti-terrorism measures.

The introduction of the latest bins, which Gualtieri describes as both "safe" and "beautiful", was announced in tandem with a raft of measures by the city's rubbish collection company AMA to cope with the excess trash expected over the Christmas season.

"For the Feast of the Immaculate Conception alone an estimated 300,00 extra people will arrive, as if the whole of Bologna moved to Rome" - AMA director general Alessandro Filippi said - "And we estimate that this will lead to an increase of 15,000 additional tons of waste to manage."

Gualtieri said there will be increased rubbish collection services over Christmas, calling on Rome residents and business-owners to "dispose of waste in the right way".