A petition signed by more than 283,000 people calling on Spain to ban smoking at all its beaches has been delivered to the country’s environment minister.
For more than two years the organisation No Fumadores (No Smokers) has been gathering signatures aimed at transforming Spain’s 3,084 miles (4,964km) of coastline into areas free of cigarette smoke and discarded cigarette butts.
The petition, delivered to the minister Teresa Ribera, calls on the government to introduce national legislation on the issue, Raquel Fernández Megina of No Fumadores said in a statement published on Friday. The hundreds of thousands of signatures gathered, she added, “send the message that we can’t wait any longer”.
Doing so would protect beachgoers from the effects of secondhand smoke while also curbing the ubiquitous cigarette butts that litter many of the country’s beaches, said Fernández Megina. Some 475 beaches in Spain have already been declared smoke free, according to the organisation.
An 2018 analysis released by the European Environment Agency suggested cigarette butts and filters were among the most commonly found items on Europe’s beaches. Their harms have been widely documented by scientists; prompting warnings that nicotine, heavy metals and benzene contained in cigarette ends may leach out, contaminating soil and aquatic environments, and that filters represent a serious ingestion and entanglement risk to marine wildlife.
No Fumadores’ demand comes as Spain gears up for what many are hoping will be a rebound in tourism. On Monday Spain will lift its restrictions on tourists from the UK, though Spain remains on the UK’s amber list. From 7 June, Spain is planning to open its doors to all travellers that have been vaccinated.
In recent months the rules that these tourists will have to follow upon arrival in Spain has sparked heated debate. In April Spanish health authorities clarified that face masks would not be mandatory while swimming and would not be obligatory on beaches as long as social distancing can be maintained.
