About 15,000 cigarette butts were removed this Saturday from the beach of Caleta de Sebo and the surroundings of this population center on the island of La Graciosa, as part of an action promoted by the Teguise City Council through the Citizen Participation area. From the Consistory they link this initiative to the project “La Graciosa, Smoke-Free Island”, which they say "has the objective of making visible and raising awareness of the problem posed by waste, especially cigarette butts, in a territory as fragile as one of the most important marine-terrestrial protected spaces in the Canary Islands".
The cleaning was carried out by about 40 volunteers, including residents and visitors, who joined in a cleaning day under the slogan “What footprint do you want to leave?”. In addition to the collection, informative actions were developed so that attendees could learn "what are the consequences of poor waste management and raise awareness among citizens that it is in their hands to avoid further contamination".
The thousands of cigarette butts have been deposited in a shell-shaped sculpture that allows you to see the level of waste and is intended to serve as a permanent reminder to make very graphically visible the damage that each of the cigarette butts can generate.
"The educational and environmental axis of the campaign"
After the criticism that the campaign has aroused, which has the support of the tobacco company Philip Morris and whose main objective is to reduce the consumption of conventional tobacco or replace it with the new devices sold by this same multinational, the City Council defends that the project "promotes actions to raise awareness about healthy and environmentally friendly habits and that it has already obtained the official Smoke Free Culture certification granted by the independent entity Tüv Austria".
“When we talk about a smoke-free island, that implies not smoking cigarettes in the spaces limited by the City Council itself and with this we not only move towards a smoke-free world, but also to generate less waste, specifically, cigarette butts, whose filters carry plastic”, explained the Councilor Delegate of La Graciosa, Alicia Páez. “The important thing is that citizens have information and make conscious use of waste such as plastic, that they know how they consume it and how they should recycle it, and that is why we want to give greater visibility to this fact and make citizens aware that it is in their hands to avoid further contamination,” added Páez.
In this sense, the mayor focused on the "environmental aspect of the campaign", highlighting that “the currents of the Atlantic Ocean mean that plastics are dragged to the beaches of La Graciosa every day, and being one of the most important protected spaces in the Canary Islands, we cannot allow it, so it is important that the local population sees it and perceives it as positive to get involved in the conservation of the environment, as well as the tourist".
