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ARCHIVED - Elche declares all its beaches smoke-free
Smoking will be discouraged on beaches in Elche in the Baix Vinalopó comarca of Alicante province.
In a bid to protect the natural environment and promote a healthy lifestyle, Elche Council has declared all its beaches smoke-free.
There are no plans to impose sanctions of any kind for smoking on Elche's coastline, the move is more of a "recommendation", a voluntary and informative proposal which aims to raise awareness about the coastline and healthy lifestyle habits.
Information boards will be placed along the coastline explaining the smoke-free campaign.
Almost a quarter of the population in the Valencia Region, (22.5 per cent) are smokers and the habit causes 5,807 deaths per year, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
Tobacco also has a serious impact on the environment: cigarette butts are not biodegradable and take 10 years to be destroyed, posing a serious problem for the maintenance teams which clean the beaches (and for the marine life and birds which see them floating on the surface of water and ingest them, believing them to be scraps of bread and die from starvation, when their intestines are filled with indigestible rubbish and they can neither submerge nor fly).
Elche boasts up to nine kilometres of fine white sand coastline divided into six beaches - El Altet, Los Arenales del Sol, El Carabassi, El Pinet, La Marina, Les Pesqueres, and El Rebollo.
The first three, in the area to the north of Elche, are characterised by having a vast area of fine-sand dunes, while the beaches located to the south, although they also have dunes, stand out for their pine forests and geological importance.
IMAGE: Ayto de Elche