Red Cross volunteers and members of the Mijas Local Council joined, this Sunday 26th, in the campaign ‘One square metre for the beaches and the seas’, promoted by Ecoembes and Seo-Birdlife to protect our coastline from the so-called ‘trashnature’, a term used by the organisers to define the “contamination of natural surroundings through residue that is of human origin”.

It is an initiative, with which the Department for Beaches of the Mijas Town Hall collaborates, and that has already completed its fifth edition. These have been carried out along up to 248 points of the Spanish coast from September 18th to 26th.

Here in Mijas, the volunteers went along to the El Charcón area to collect all the rubbish they found in their path. From wipes and masks, to batteries, refreshment cans and fishing remains, many of these deposited between the rocks.

“I have already collected fifteen fish hooks”, said Nacho Álvarez, a Mijas Red Cross volunteer. In this regard, Juan Antonio Martín, another of the NGO volunteers, added that “these hooks and lines rust very quickly and create a danger both for the people who go to the beach, and for the dogs that walk around here and, of course, the fish and animals that inhabit the sea”.

Environmental impact

Also participating in the activity was the councillor for the Environment of the Mijas Town Hall, Arancha López (Cs), who explained that “all this waste is separated according to the type. It is later weighed and then the images are uploaded to a mobile application of the Ministry for  Ecological Transition to show the environmental impact caused by certain bad habits and, most importantly, create awareness among citizens”.

There are studies and data that should make us reflect. Two years ago, the World Economic Forum announced that “if measures are not taken urgently, in 2050 the weight of the plastics will be heavier than the weight of all the fish on the planet”.

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