Cigarette butts tarnish the coast of Lanzarote: "The culture of a people is measured by the trash it throws away"

A jallo is an object dragged by the tide to the shore of the coast that is usually found on beaches and pebble beaches. Historically, this finding was accompanied by a sense of good fortune, it was associated with valuable items. Unfortunately, with the increase in the consumption of single-use plastic and cigarette butts, the waves do not sporadically drag valuable pieces, but rather daily propel remains of the garbage that humans throw into the sea.

"We could measure the culture of a people by the amount of garbage we see lying around," laments José Goñi García, representative of the Custodia del Territorio Papacría Association. In a battle to raise awareness among the population of Lanzarote about the risks posed by a single cigarette butt, the conservationist (as he prefers to call himself) carries a giant representation of a half-smoked cigarette.

"We are the environment, what we are doing to nature, we are doing to ourselves," defends Goñi, who believes that "seeing it as a separate entity" is "an absolute mistake." "When a person throws away a cigarette butt, they are throwing it at me, it offends me in a brutal way, I am nature, the environment," he continues.

A single cigarette butt can contaminate up to a thousand liters of water

The cigarette butt is the most abundant waste found on the planet. A single one can contaminate between forty and a thousand liters of water, "harming all the organisms that depend on it." This is stated in the General Report on Cigarette Butts, prepared by Eco House Global. "Animals are eating them and they go directly into the food chain," which then reaches humans, highlights the conservationist.

These tobacco wastes have ended up forming part of the landscape of Lanzarote and its natural settings. From protected areas such as Papagayo beach, the coast of Famara, or the natural pools of Punta Mujeres, no corner of the island is free from tobacco remains or the garbage left in the sea after a day at the beach.

"Are you a butt-thrower or a smoker?" questions Goñi. The Custodia del Territorio Association prefers to distinguish between the figure of smokers, whom they associate with people who do not throw their cigarette butts on the ground; and the figure of the butt-throwers, as they ironically call smokers who discard their cigarettes without wondering where they will end up.

Despite the risks it generates in the environment, it is common to come across areas of beaches full of these cigarette butts. Beyond the environmental and social risks generated by trash, the Papacría Association has tried to understand what leads a person to throw a cigarette butt on the ground. José Goñi states that there are two reasons: "unconsciousness" and "ignorance." "Ignorance not as an insult, but as a lack of culture, an absence of knowledge," he points out.

Combating damage to nature through art

"The trash that is inland, especially on an island, will end up in the sea," says the environmentalist. The Association has chosen the path of art to raise awareness among the population through the right hemisphere of the brain. Among these measures, they have chosen to carry giant cigarette butts to large events such as the Fiestas de Los Dolores or to trace the trash generated by a major event.

"When you see a painting, when you paint, when you listen to music, you don't make an effort to listen to it, you are enjoying it, feeling it. So we try to convey a message through art," he explains.

Goñi invites the population to become activists for their own environment. "We are not going to tell them 'dude, stinky, pick that up' because that's already a fight," he advises. Instead, "you say: 'Oh, you dropped something' and keep walking, very important that you keep walking so you leave the scene."

In contrast, the representative of Papacría defends that those who pollute the environment by throwing trash become an "environmental criminal." "Article 45 of the Constitution states that we have the right to a healthy environment and the duty to preserve it, [...] when we see a person throwing a cigarette butt in the street or throwing anything and we say nothing, we become accomplices to that crime."