Pongal crowd leaves tonnes of trash

According to the Greater Chennai Corporation, 15 tonnes of garbage was collected in Elliot’s Beach, while 27 tonnes of solid waste was collected in Marina after Kaanum Pongal. On an average day, three tonnes of solid waste is collected in each of the city’s popular beaches.

Satyarupa Sekhar, Director, Government Outreach and Advocacy, Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG), who has been working on solid waste management, said that most of the waste generated during Kaanum Pongal is plastic.

“In our audits, we discovered that a large part of residual waste is plastic, which is hard to recycle, both in the formal and the informal sector.

Since we don’t do waste segregation, it is difficult to recycle. There is an increasing use of low-grade plastic, which has no recycle value.

Those that can be recycled is done so at a huge cost to environment and energy,” Satyarupa said.

Highlighting the effect on marine life, she added, “Plastics and the myth of recycling is affecting our marine life and coastal cities like Chennai are already bearing the brunt,” she said, pointing out that only 12% of all plastic generated is recycled.