Los Cabos municipal crews removed roughly 250 tons of waste from the Leonardo Gastélum Villalobos neighborhood in Cabo San Lucas this week, part of a broader sanitation campaign that has drawn more than 200 workers and volunteers to the area. The Cabo San Lucas cleanup covered stages 1 and 2 of the colonia and included mechanical sweeping of 8 kilometers of streets.
Officials Push Community Participation
Dulce Martínez Cázares, the municipality’s coordinator of citizen services, said the cleanup is part of a strategy to improve sanitation and encourage community participation across Cabo San Lucas neighborhoods. Officials stressed that residents need to separate their garbage and prevent trash from reaching local arroyos, which carry waste directly into the ocean.
The effort also targeted large household items and bulky refuse dumped on streets and in public spaces. An earlier cleanup round hit the same colonia and the neighboring Colonia Cactus during the first week of March, with about 200 municipal workers taking part.
New Equipment on the Way
Daniel García, the Cabo San Lucas manager for OOMSAPAS (the municipal water and sewer utility), said about 20 new garbage collection vehicles will soon be deployed to improve pickup schedules across the city. Los Cabos Mayor Christian Agúndez Gómez visited the Leonardo Gastélum neighborhood on March 6 and told residents the trucks would be assigned primarily to Cabo San Lucas.
During that visit, Agúndez also announced that about 1,500 new streetlights would be installed in several colonias. Leonardo Gastélum Villalobos is expected to be among the first neighborhoods to receive them. A perimeter fence for the area was also under construction at the time, with completion estimated at roughly two weeks.
Part of a Wider Pattern
Leonardo Gastélum Villalobos sits on the inland side of Cabo San Lucas, away from the tourist corridor. Like many working-class colonias in Los Cabos, it has grown faster than city services can keep up. Víctor Miranda Urióstegui, the coordinator of Cabo San Lucas subdelegates, confirmed that the cleanup drives were ordered by both the mayor and municipal delegate Karina de la O Uribe.
The municipality plans to continue coordinated cleanup campaigns in colonias across Cabo San Lucas in the coming weeks, according to the Los Cabos municipal government.