Did you know that Del Carmen Saltworks are the only hundred percent sustainable saltworks of Spain?

These saltworks- “salinas” in spanish- declared a Site of Cultural Interest in 2002, have associated with a series of values ​​such as landscaping, cultural, ethnographic,architectural, historical or environmental. Values ​​that make them a great set of interest and that, in addition, are a good example of the wealth of the island’s heritage.

In addition to the facilities themselves and their associated values, if something stands out, Salinas del Carmen, is for the quality of the final product. The salt. A salt of sea foam of very high quality and with very special characteristics derived from the process itself of obtaining, as we will see in upcoming blog entries. But today, we want to highlight another fundamental aspect: its sustainability. They are basically two elements, which will allow us to talk about one hundred percent sustainable “salinas”. On the one hand, the system for capturing sea water, and on the other thesalt collection system.

The “saltadero” of the Salinas del Carmen All the salinas have a system for capturing and driving water. Through this system, water enters the facilities to later be distributed by gravity. The salt water catchment systems that have traditionally been used in the “salinas” are very varied, and are usually divided into assets and liabilities. On another occasion we will go deeper into these systems. But it is important to know that in the Canary Islands, from of the 50s of the twentieth century, appear the pumping motors that consisted of a motor of explosion with fossil energy competition, which will be the antecedent of the current Electric pumps driven with electric energy. However, the Salinas del Carmen saltadero, is a system for capturing sea​​water in which the onslaught of the living tides introduces water into facilities. The saltadero, also known as overflow and is a wall of transverse retention to the direction of the swell, whose section on the high tide allows, as we say, the introduction of sea water, in a sustainable way. Without need to engines or machinery. Del Carmen Saltworks, are the only saltworks in the Canary Islands that currently have this catchment system by means of a salver or overflow.

The salt worker Once the salt water is introduced into the saltadero, it is conducted to the evaporation ponds, where it stays between eight and ten days warming up.When the water reaches the evaporation pond it is ready to evaporate and produce salt crystallisation At this moment the salt workers, of a manually and traditionally way, using traditional tools, they will extract the salt at the edge of the trench, where it will remain a few days draining. In many “salinas” , the traditional trade of the salineros has been replaced by machines that They are in charge of extracting the salt from the salinas. There are many salt works that use engines to obtain seawater, and machinery for the collection of salt. Some use the motors but maintain the trade of salt. But Del Carmen Salinas, are the only ones where the whole process is carried out in a hundred percent
sustainable way, that only uses the tides, the action of the sun and wind, and craft work of a traditional trade like that of the salineros. At a time when the planet is reeling from the action of man over the environment, it is necessary to rethink our model of life, and starting from the respect for environment, betting on sustainable development. Look to the past, to the systems traditional production helps us find that long-awaited balance between development economic and caring for the environment. From Del Carmen Saltworks , we contribute our bit, ,in addition to everything we have told you, in the most modern part of our facilities, in which the part of the Museum is located …

We use solar energy! A renewable energy and therefore clean and inexhaustible, essential in the fight against climate change and respectful of the environment