The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Marina cleared of garbage

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Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Marina cleared of garbage

Kannal Achuthan

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

RAIN RELIC: Garbage washed up on the beach after the recent rains was collected in a shallow pit on Tuesday.

Chennai: The Chennai Corporation on Tuesday cleared 150 tonnes of garbage — bottles, thermocol, slippers, wood, paper and plastic — that were washed up along the Marina after the recent rain.

The civic body was able to remove a substantial part of the garbage and the remaining has been collected in shallow trenches made on the beach sand for removal on Wednesday. The garbage had been washed up on the beach as the Cooum was in spate during the heavy rain. The Cooum connects several waterways, including the Buckingham Canal, the Captain Cotton Canal and the Otteri Nullah, to the Bay of Bengal.

Some visitors to the beach on Tuesday said that garbage was being buried when they saw the shallow trenches that were made on the sand to pile the litter. They said that this was an unsafe way to dispose of the garbage as it would resurface after a few days or get into the sea. Also, no effort was made to segregate the garbage for recycling, they said.

Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni said that the garbage was not being buried but only collected at one spot. As trucks could not ply on the sand, the garbage removal took considerable time. It was scooped by earthmover and taken to the waiting trucks on the service lanes of the beach. Beach cleaning equipment, designed to sift through the sand to remove plastic and paper, could not be used owing to the enormous quantity of garbage and because the trash was wet.

About 100 workers removed the garbage. Work is also under way to clean the Elliot’s Beach in Besant Nagar and the Thiruvanmiyur beach. Urban planning expert M.G. Devasahayam said that the garbage had been lying on the beach since the rain and would have to be cleared immediately to prevent health problems.

Medical camps

Mayor M. Subramanian visited medical camps organised at Chintadripet on Sunday. Similar camps were held in residential areas in 80 localities across the city. Patchwork on about 2,800 sq.m of damaged roads had been completed in the past three days and road repair would continue, a release said.

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