Barcelona buds

I don’t envy you but I do wish I too could see all the local, underground, and undiscovered places you’ve seen in Barcelona. I couldn’t possibly be tossed into the life you live, not by the constraints of my reality. You, on the other hand, can squish into every imaginable nook and cranny of this city. You can escape me, but I can’t escape you. I’m surely outnumbered millions to one. Just a few centimeters long, your shape haunts my footsteps and your smell haunts my memory. In such a day and age of consumer advocacy, regulation, and science I wonder why you still prevail. I come from a place where cigarette butts might scatter a street or two but could never complete with your team in Barcelona. You, cigarette butt, when can we indefinitely say, adieu?

As I roam the city constantly on the prowl for a new adventure, I set foot on on street after street you have tainted or marked. We lock eyes and you mockingly tease me “I’ve already been here!” Two months into calling Barcelona home, I attest to the city’s cleanliness and stunning natural spaces, beaches, and parks. But I can not ignore how the city is simultaneously home to countless cigarette filters. Barcelona can pride itself on being a clean city but the butts threaten this generous compliment. During our CEA beach cleaning at Barceloneta, we gathered 10 pounds of trash and an entire trash bag’s worth of cigarette butts in just under an hour. The filters are sadly concentrated in natural spaces where street cleaners cannot easily pass through on their daily sweeps. Cigarette filters are 98% microplastics which likely contributes to the credit cards’ worth of plastic we eat weekly.

In light of the graphic packaging of tobacco bags here in Europe, I am surprised about the persistence of your followers reaching such a range of ages and barrios. Coming from the US, I have only ever known traditional cigarette packaging. However, in Europe, it’s hard to ignore the tobacco bags which are littered with images of rotting lungs, people in hospital beds, or blackened teeth. These horrific pictures are alongside phrases such as “Don’t let children breathe your smoke,” “Smoking kills,” or “Smoking causes blindness as well as lung, throat, and mouth cancer.” The consumer advocacy here is impressive, an achievement I could never imagine the “land of the free” adopting. The US will likely never awaken from its trance and romance with consumer "choice."

I constantly walk into clouds of smoke reminding me of your ever presence. I wish we could switch roles and I could roll about the city, seeing things from all new angles. Let’s switch roles. You’re me. Then you'd see this one day I had when I was standing on top of the clouds above Park Guell. I made it above the smog and I believed I could breathe in deeply free from your haze. I was free of fumes, free of smoke, exhausted from the climb but filled by clean mountain air. Crouching down to take a seat at the spectacular sunset show you catch the corner of my eye. The longer I look, the more I see. Suddenly I’m surrounded by you. The swaths of cigarette filters line the ground and walkways, even in my nook above the clouds. Dear, cigarette butts, when can we indefinitely say adieu?