Screening mesh put up in drains to prevent plastics entering Selaiyur lake

“Selaiyur lake is one of the largest lakes here and a lot of work remains to be done to restore it and we decided to start with preventing garbage being let into it,” said Darwin Annadurai, founder of Eco-Society India.

“We have been working on this project from last year and have been cleaning the lake for more 38 weeks, including a mass cleanup recently during which we collected more than 80 tonnes of trash. The lake cleanup is carried out regularly, and we also began to conduct street play to create awareness about keeping the water body clean. Soon, the residents here stopped dumping garbage in it,” added Darwin.

To prevent the lake from being littered with plastic waste, the organization has come up with screening mesh fitted in front of drains before they let the water into water body. “It helps to clear the waste of plastics easily. Now, sewage also gets dumped into the lake and we must make alternative sewage treatment plants to purify the water. Only then, will the lake’s water quality improve,” Darwin said.

The NGO claimed that it has received permission from the PWD and municipality officials for this initiative. “We keep municipality officials updated about our activities. They have been supportive and during the cleanup drives, they send us trucks to collect the waste,” said Santhosh Kumar M, a volunteer for Eco-Society India.

A few residents in the area claimed that there were no sanitary workers to collect their trash and so they had been disposing their waste in the lake. Now, however, the situation has changed. “Earlier, there was no door to door garbage collection system in place, so we had no choice but to dump the waste in the lake. But we stopped doing so after we noticed people cleaning it and trying to keep the lake free from trash. Now, we also stop other passers-by from throwing their garbage into Selaiyur lake,” said Sankari K, a resident said.

When contacted, the municipality sanitary inspector, N Sivakumar said, “We have been monitoring the lake to check who dumps garbage there and are also involved in cleaning the water body every week. We think that the screening mesh will help in preventing garbage from flowing into the lake.”