Plea to pilgrims to help clear Spain’s Camino de Santiago of litter
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In ancient times, pilgrims walked the Camino de Santiago to purify their souls, the long and winding road ending where the remains of the apostle St James are said to be buried in city of Santiago de Compostela.
But now their modern counterparts are being asked to take on an altogether more practical form of cleansing: picking up litter from the side of the route.
Discarded cigarette ends, food wrappers and used Covid-19 protective masks along the trail form part of a modern day problem which conservationists have labelled ‘littered nature’.
SEO/Birdlife and Ecoembes, two Spanish NGOs which are involved in conservation, are encouraging pilgrims along two parts of the route to join them in removing the discarded rubbish of careless wanderers.
Walkers are given bags and asked to join volunteers along the Camino Ingles, from A Coruña to the route’s end in Santiago de Compostela, in northern Spain, and the Camino de la Plata, from Seville in southern Spain or Portugal to the end of the pilgrimage.
NGO workers are also studying the level of pollution along the route so as to encourage companies which make facial coverings or food packaging to use reusable materials.
In 2019, more than 347,000 people made the pilgrimage, following the yellow shell signs, which are the symbol of St James.
Photo: A signpost of the Camino de Santiago in the village of A Vide in Galicia, Spain. EPA-EFE/Eliseo Trigo
