Calpe Town Council has joined the iniciativa#MiPuebloSinBasuraleza of the LIBERA Project, of SEO/BirdLife in alliance with Ecoembes, which aims to raise awareness in society to value the villages and their natural environments and keep them free of litter. The Libera project was part of the 1st SAVE (Sustainability-Action-Volunteer-Environment) University Conference, held last Saturday, in which a hundred volunteers collected 800 kilos of garbage as part of a research project for the categorization of waste.
Through this initiative, the City Council undertakes to inform about the scientific and social benefits of “citizen science”, and in particular to promote the organization of “litter” collections in the calls of 1m2 for the Environments and 1m2 against litter, as well as the use of the e-Litter, MARNOBA and Basuraleza apps as collaborative tools that promote greater scientific knowledge about the problem that generates the abandonment of waste in nature.
The City Council is obliged to raise awareness among citizens against the abandonment of “litter”, acting as an active part in transmitting the messages of the available awareness campaigns and to provide local organizations and associations with the advice they need and the economic support to be able to develop activities that promote the conservation of natural environments.
The Libera project was born in 2017 and since then it has continued to grow and has managed to consolidate a network that already consists of more than 2,500 entities between public administrations, scientific entities or local collectives to fight against littering. Last year the network had a total of 755 municipalities adhered to put in value their natural heritage and raise awareness among their neighbors and visitors about the impact of the abandonment of waste in their environments.
Of all the litter collected and characterized in 2023 (335,000 pieces of waste), cigarette butts are the most common waste found in natural environments (representing more than 19% of all litter), followed by wet wipes (11.07%), plastic pieces of less than 2.5 cm (10.45%) or beverage cans (9.04%), among others.