Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Taking care of beaches

Throughout the year the City Council —in collaboration with other administrations and public entities— takes care of the maintenance of city beaches and coastline. Cleaning and maintaining the beaches of Barcelona are undoubtedly fundamental tasks. This is a complementary service to security services, prevention and public information and entertainment for those swimmers and users who stay on the city coast.

The public beach maintenance is organized according to the influx of users, so frequency and human and material resources increase during the bathing season, especially between the months of June and August. Works are aimed at maintaining the quality of the sand, water, beaches surroundings and hygiene facilities for users (showers and toilets), as well as at environmental education (Beach Centre and Sea Space).

Barcelona beaches have public toilets and showers for users. From the mid-season, there are also beach bars with soft drinks and food.

From June the 1st to September the 30th: full activation of beach services

Cleaning services in beaches during the peak season include daily cleaning by 21 teams with 40 workers. Besides, there are two cleaning teams during morning and evening shifts for emptying bins, sweeping sand, collecting trash from the bins in beach bars, mechanical sieving of beach sand and cleaning and watering paved areas.

Users have 126 public toilets: 11 public lavatory and 56 public toilets —14 of them are adapted— from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and 70 free-use toilets —17 of them are adapted— located at the 20 beach bars. Beaches also have 92 showers, plus sunbeds and umbrellas service. Beach bars serve bathers from the tables area to the sea and within a radius of 50 meters around its location from 9:00 until midnight in the beaches located in Ciutat Vella, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.in the beaches located in Sant Martí.

Three ships are responsible for cleaning floating waste on the surface of the sea from the swimming area of Forum to the beach of Sant Sebastià in order to keep the city coast clean. This cleaning team has two ONA boat and one pelican boat which work every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Bathers area in all beaches are marked with buoys in order to establish navigation limit for boats and areas were bathing is forbidden (breakwaters, etc.).

Users can instantly know the status of beaches through digital information panels located on the beaches of Mar Bella, Bogatell and Barceloneta, as well as the local website or through mobile apps such as iBeach, platgesCat and info Platges available for iPhone and Android.