Over ten days up to next Thursday, the third annual campaign to stop cigarette ends being deposited on beaches is expected to collect some 200,000 ends from various beaches in Majorca.
The campaign was launched earlier this week by its founder, Miquel Garau, who was joined for the presentation by the government's director general for waste and environmental education, Sebastià Sansó. Garau highlighted the increased amounts that are being collected. In 2017, there were 61,000 cigarette ends from sixty Majorcan beaches; in 2018, there were 102,000 from 83 beaches.
Next Thursday at 6pm, the campaign will conclude at Can Pere Antoni beach in Palma, where a "mountain of shame" will be created from the cigarette ends which have been picked up.
Sansó said that the environment ministry is studying solutions to the problem of cigarette ends within the framework of Balearic legislation on waste. The beaches, when it comes to waste of this type, are the responsibility of town halls. He added that the ministry is drafting text for a standard form of bylaw that town halls may wish to adopt.
The director general reiterated that the ministry is also involved with the no-smoking beaches campaign alongside the health ministry. Six beaches in Majorca are now part of this. Sansó explained that this campaign is, at present, just for information.
Leaflets are being handed out on the beaches and there are also signs. He suggested that there may in future be penalties for smoking on these beaches, stressing that their introduction would be decisions taken by individual town halls.
The beaches are Cala Anguila (Manacor), Cala Deya, Cala Estancia (Palma), Cala Millor (the Sant Llorenç part), Cala Sant Joan (Alcudia) and Colonia Sant Pere. A seventh beach, Binisafuller, is in Minorca.