Once they arrive at Santiago Cathedral many pilgrims do not stop their journey but continue to Finisterre on the coast and the so-called kilometre zero of the Camino de Santiago at the Finisterre Lighthouse. This small rugged headland with dramatic scenery has always been considered the ‘end of the world’, hence its name.
One of the traditions is that to celebrate the end of their journey, pilgrims leave their hiking clothes behind or burn their shoes and scatter the ashes into the sea from the cliff at the lighthouse. Others just leave their stuff there. However, the municipality is now taking measures to prevent fire and pollution on the local coastline. One such measure is for walkers to deposit their belongings in a recycling container. This is placed next to the lighthouse.
Container promotion campaign
At the same time, the newspaper Heraldo de Aragón reports that to encourage the use of the container, the shoe manufacturers of Tierra del Aranda have designed the awareness campaign “Buen Camino, Mejor finale” in which they will raffle 100 pairs of shoes among walkers using the container. In addition, they receive a bag with the symbolic ashes of their boots. In this day and age, it makes more sense to find a more sustainable way to honor the tradition and hopefully also donate some usable hiking boots or clothes to others who can use them.
Source: https://inspain.news/
