Urbanisation processes are increasing worldwide at surprising rates affecting wildlife in many ways: changing habitat structure, reducing resources, and modifying the distribution, composition and abundance of local biota. In different countries, urban waste collection techniques are evolving and surface rubbish containers (neighbourhood receptacles for temporarily storing anthropogenic household waste located above-ground on the streets) are being replaced with underground ones (metal boxes with steel chutes that fed into large underground containers) to improve sanitation measures, to avoid bad smells and waste scattering by animals. We aimed to detect if House Sparrows were more abundant close to surface rubbish containers than close to the underground ones. We recorded an abundance index of House Sparrows during two visits in winter 2018–2019 to point counts located in groups of both container types (80 and 85 groups of underground and surface containers, respectively) in eight towns of Eastern Spain. We modelled the abundance index according to rubbish container type, and 14 other environmental variables at four scales: container, nearest buildings, near urban features, and general locality features using GLMMs. House Sparrows were more abundant close to surface than to underground rubbish containers, which may be linked with higher food debris availability. The presence of other urban features (bar terraces, private gardens, mature trees) interacting with the rubbish containers also influenced the abundance of House Sparrows. The replacement of above-ground rubbish containers with underground ones may deprive House Sparrows resources, which could lead to the decline of this species, especially in urban areas with little green cover.

世界范围内的城市化进程以惊人的速度增加，以多种方式影响野生动物：改变栖息地结构、减少资源以及改变当地生物群的分布、组成和丰度。在不同的国家，城市垃圾收集技术不断发展，地面垃圾容器（街道上用于临时储存人为生活垃圾的社区容器）正在被地下容器（带有钢槽的金属箱，可装入大型地下容器）所取代。改善卫生措施，避免动物散发出难闻的气味和废物。我们的目标是检测靠近地面垃圾容器的麻雀是否比靠近地下垃圾容器的数量更多。我们在 2018 年至 2019 年冬季的两次访问期间记录了麻雀的丰度指数，以位于西班牙东部八个城镇的两种集装箱类型组（分别为 80 和 85 组地下和地面集装箱）中的点计数。我们根据垃圾容器类型和四个尺度的 14 个其他环境变量对丰度指数进行建模：容器、最近的建筑物、邻近城市特征和使用 GLMM 的一般位置特征。与地下垃圾容器相比，靠近地表的麻雀数量更多，这可能与较高的食物残渣可用性有关。与垃圾容器相互作用的其他城市特征（酒吧露台、私人花园、成熟的树木）的存在也影响了麻雀的数量。