Dirty Beaches in Malta

Come enjoy the beautiful ashtrays  – sorry –beaches of Malta!

It is a sad fact that some of the beaches in this country are just a disgrace, and this is not one of those things that people can start blaming ‘immigrants’ for.  And no, it’s not just those pesky tourists either.  (Although okay, yes, it is some of those pesky tourists).

While enjoying some well-deserved lounging on my local rocky beach in Bugibba today, I eventually grew tired of the sight of cigarette butts arrayed all around me, and started picking a couple of them up.  And then a couple more.

Until I ended up with this:

Bear in mind that this represents 10 minutes of a grown man crawling around  a 3m square area of rocky beach.

Now having spent a considerable period of my adult life as a smoker, I am not here to give my former smokers-in-arms a kicking.  But guys – come on!   Put out your butts in a coke can or something, it won’t kill you.  And by ‘guys’ I mean guys and gals.  Well over half of these butts came from those nice elegant looking ‘ladies’ brands of cigarettes, so we all need to take a look at ourselves here.

Unfortunately casual littering still seems to be one of those things (like parking in the middle of the street and texting while driving) that are seen as perfectly socially acceptable here in Malta.

It’s not just smokers who are to blame, although unfortunately cigarette filters have a life-cycle of about a billion years or something, so they do tend to accumulate.

Tourism is Malta’s Number One industry by some distance.  And let’s face it, a lot of tourists are attracted by the sunny weather, and are going to wish to spend a good portion of their visit here laid out on a beach somewhere.

Instagrammed photos of crumpled up Cisk cans and sanitary towels floating along in the currents are not going to do any favours for Malta’s touristic reputation, so let’s try sticking up a couple of anti-littering signs and a few more trash receptacles on these beaches.

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