Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, August 21, 2026 – Jalisco state lawmaker Yussara Canales González is asking Puerto Vallarta to keep garbage trucks on their published routes and disclose the legal and financial decisions behind a waste concession that collapsed 15 months into a 15-year term.
Canales presented a legislative agreement asking Congress to formally urge Mayor Luis Ernesto Munguía González to guarantee permanent and efficient street cleaning and waste collection, with priority given to areas where garbage has accumulated.
The proposal also calls on City Hall to comply with established collection routes, hours and frequencies. A third request would require the municipality to provide a report covering the legal, administrative and financial actions connected to the Red Ambiental concession, identified as LPN-SP-PV-001-2024, and the steps taken when the agreement ended early.
Canales cited complaints in Versalles, Floresta, Mojoneras, La Vena, San Esteban, Barrio Santa María, Infonavit, Estadio, Lomas del Coapinole, Vista Hermosa, Magisterio, Bobadilla, Loma Bonita, Palma Real, Valentín Gómez Farías, Ojo de Agua and Independencia.
She warned that exposed waste has attracted flies, mosquitoes and other pests, increasing health and environmental risks in neighborhoods already reporting delayed collection. The legislator placed the city’s average daily waste volume at approximately 444 metric tons.
The dispute reaches back to December 2024, when the municipal government awarded Red Ambiental a 15-year concession covering collection, transportation, treatment and final disposal of solid waste.
The arrangement began unraveling in January after the company reduced service over unpaid municipal bills. City Hall terminated the concession in March, and municipal crews assumed direct control of garbage collection on April 1. Red Ambiental placed the accumulated debt near 240 million pesos when it ended operations.
Direct municipal control did not stabilize collection immediately. Missed routes produced waste piles in multiple neighborhoods, municipal employees briefly stopped work in May, and the city suspended neighborhood collection on June 19 while maintaining service in the tourist corridor.
City Hall introduced another operational overhaul on July 15. The revised neighborhood collection calendar assigned each colonia either daily service or four collections each week, divided between morning and evening routes.
The municipality has also expanded its workforce. An August 9 update said 94 unionized employees had returned to collection duties and another 50 workers had been hired to operate routes across three daily shifts.
Canales’s filing shifts attention from the staffing increases and new calendars to whether trucks are consistently completing the routes already announced.
The environmental problem also extends beyond curbside collection. The El Gavilán landfill has operated under a partial closure imposed by Jalisco environmental authorities since June 5. The state intervention followed the discovery that the facility lacked a current environmental authorization after its previous permit expired in December 2025.
The landfill continued receiving municipal waste under supervision, but a July review found that it had not completed the required corrections. Officials also acknowledged that available machinery remained insufficient to complete some compaction and disposal work.
The state proposal does not establish another collection system. It asks the legislature to press Puerto Vallarta to carry out the one already in effect and explain the consequences of ending the previous concession. With either daily service or four scheduled collections now assigned by colonia, missed pickups can be measured against a public calendar rather than a general promise of improved service.
