2024-08-24 09:05:58
In 2022, the Spanish government has passed a law that aims to stop people from littering and not recycling properly, with sufficient fines. €2,001 for those who leave cardboard boxes outside of the right dumpster.
In Madrid alone, 299 people have been fined an eye-watering amount since the law was passed, in many cases because they could not get Amazon cardboard boxes (with their name and address on them) to enter paper waste containers.
This has surprised many people across the country, but the truth is that most of the town halls in Spain have their own rules in place to prevent people from putting furniture lying on the street, garbage bags littering outside or putting litter in the wrong recycling bins.
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Under the current approach of getting tough on those who ignore health and environmental concerns, many cities and towns are doing more inspections than ever.
The glitzy city of Marbella is among them, having already opened disciplinary action against 128 residents so far this year. Police officers in plainclothes roam the streets in large numbers in order to arrest unsuspecting criminals. Fines range from €90 to €3,000 depending on how severe it is.
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In Cádiz, the underground police are also keeping a close eye on the rubbish bins. In Cabo de Gata in Almería, €700 fines have been given to those who leave garbage on the beach.
In Burgos in northern Spain, there are €300 fines for placing a mattress bent next to a dump.
In Torrevieja in Alicante, new fines range from €150 for minor offenses such as smoking cigarettes on the ground to a maximum of €500,000 for serious environmental hazards.
Every town and city sets its own values but what is clear is that there are dozens of recent news stories from all over the world showing how littering and policing are taken more seriously than ever before.
In other news, Spain may have managed to avoid drought throughout the country This summer due to some welcome rain in the last eight months, but there are still places where the lack of water is causing serious consequences.
In many towns along the Costa Blanca, people have been warned not to drink tap water because the severe drought has made it salty and undrinkable.
Teulada, Benitachell and Moraira are among them. Here tourists and locals are queuing up to fill bottles of drinking H20 in the middle of a pleasant summer.
Water consumption is high in the Marina Alta area, where there are 38,000 pools, one for every five inhabitants.
The northern part of the Alicante region has half the total amount of rain in 2023 and only 10 percent of normal levels until 2024.
Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation agency, on Friday shared a satellite image of Alicante as its photo of the day to show the “extreme drought” the region is experiencing.
This #Sentinel2 This image taken on 17 August 2024 shows the Costa Blanca, an area hard hit by drought in Spain. The prolonged lack of rain has led to severe water shortages, leading to flooding in coastal cities.
– Copernicus EU (@CopernicusEU) August 23, 2024
The Valencian region declared a “severe drought” last March, the worst in 33 years after the 2023 extreme heat which saved aquifer reserves. Progress and mass tourism are also contributing greatly to the shortage.
Restrictions have been in place in many areas across the region since then, but some city halls have resisted the advice and continue to allow people to fill their pools and water their gardens.
What is clear is that Spain’s fight against drought will not really have an end point, however the filling of the country’s water reservoirs stops after the ‘normal’ rainy season (currently 43 percent full throughout the country).
According to scientists, Spain has the “perfect” conditions for desertification to occur: climate change, rapid development, large amounts of people. From the south, to the east, to the northeast, 73 percent of Spain is in danger of becoming a desert.
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