My family and I went down to the beautiful cabopino beach today just a few kilometres east of Marbella and when we went to reserve our sun loungers, the sun lounger guy gave us a small plastic device, similar looking to an orange ice cream cone and told us it was for our cigrarette butts.

Not that we smoke or anything but I thought it was not only a great concept in terms of design but also a brilliant initiative by the Marbella council to try and keep the beaches just that little bit cleaner.

The cone shape of the device allows you to place it in the sand and there is even a little ridge so you can rest your ciggy on the end.

I guess once you are done with it you simply toss it in the trash.

Beings devils advocate though, my concern would be with this kind of thing is that yes, it keeps the beaches free of cigarette butts, but does the landfill not get filled with these little orange cones made of plastic, which takes hundreds of years to degrade?

It would be nicer for people to simply not throw their cigarette butss onto the beaches in the first place!

Anyway, here are a few extra pics of the little orange coned device.

Looks like an ice creame cone- well thats what my 4 year old dsaid anyway.

It even has a little groove so you can rest your ciggy