La Laguna City Hall, in collaboration with the joint venture Teidagua and the City Council’s Water Supply department, has issued a call to raise public awareness regarding the numerous cigarette butts that find their way into the drains of the public sewer system. Through sanitation and cleaning operations, over five million manholes are cleared annually from various locations within the municipality, resulting in more than two tonnes of this type of waste.
The Mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, stated, “The average quantity of cigarette butts gathered per month now surpasses 420,000, a figure that is on the rise and poses a risk of obstructing our internal infrastructure, as well as threatening our natural surroundings.”
In this context, the Mayor reminded residents that the municipal cleaning regulations classify such actions as an infraction punishable by the Local Police.
The Mayor further clarified, “This is not about vilifying any particular sector of the population, as many individuals dispose of their tobacco correctly using appropriate bins and containers.”
He also highlighted, “We have encountered individuals who still think that drains are acceptable places to dispose of their cigarette butts, which alerts us to the necessity of disseminating this message of collective consciousness to help eradicate these habits that jeopardise public property.”
The councillor for Water Supply, Ángel Chinea, emphasised that “in the central area of La Laguna alone, over three million cigarette butts are collected from drains each year, representing 1.27 tonnes of waste.”
“Our projections suggest that some drains in the historic centre can accumulate up to 600 cigarette butts daily, even with bins situated mere metres away,” cautioned the councillor.
In this regard, Chinea noted that “the actions of rain or cleaning conducted by individual establishments and the City Council’s cleaning staff can result in some of this waste ending up in our ravines, which, over time, is deposited along the coast.”
MONTHLY CLEANING ACTIONS
The Teidagua joint venture has considerably enhanced these operations in recent years, organising monthly cleaning activities across the more than 8,000 drains located throughout the municipality.
Furthermore, preventive cleaning is conducted weekly on all the grates of the wastewater pumping stations that are part of the sewer system, where a significant portion of the waste removed still comprises sanitary wipes, despite numerous awareness campaigns addressing this issue.
“All the efforts we make in terms of raising awareness will never suffice to reach that small segment of both local citizens and visitors who choose to leave their rubbish in our sewage system without considering the repercussions that this seemingly insignificant act can have on our present and near future,” remarked Luis Yeray Gutiérrez.
