Sabarimala to be plastic-free from February

High Court directive for execution of Pollution Control Board order from next month

January 05, 2016 12:00 am | Updated September 22, 2016 10:06 pm IST

hanks to the emphatic intervention of the Kerala High Court, PET bottles and other plastic wastes will be banned in Sabarimala, situated in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, from February 1.

Earlier, in November 2010, the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) had imposed a blanket ban on sale and use of plastic carry bags and the dumping of plastic bottles, including PET bottles, sachets and pouches in and around the Sanidhanam, Pampa, Chalakkayam, Nilackal and Erumely.

Though the Travancore Devaswom Board, the police and local self-government institutions were bound to implement the PCB ban, it was not done. This has been leading to accumulation and littering of all sorts of plastic waste in the reserve forests, posing a serious threat to the wildlife as well as the environment.

Taking serious note of the failure, which in effect amounted to a criminal offence, a High Court Division Bench comprising Justices Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Anu Sivaraman recently directed Special Commissioner K. Babu to ensure execution of the PCB order from the February 1 to save the area’s wildlife and protect the reserve forests from further degradation.

The court also directed the Environmental Engineer of the TDB to ensure that the waste management is done effectively, with guidance from the PCB authorities.

The court also asked the Special Commissioner to ensure that the waste that has accumulated at Sabarimala and its base camps during the ongoing pilgrim season is cleared, to facilitate a total ban on plastic wastes in letter and spirit from February 1.The Special Commissioner was also directed to ensure foolproof alternatives for a hassle-free supply of safe drinking water at Sabrimala, Pampa, Nilackal, Chalakkayam, Erumely and on the trekking path.

Despite being a major national pilgrim centre, does not have even a fool-proof water treatment plant.

The Kerala Water Authority has been supplying drinking water to the pilgrim centre, visited by millions every year, simply after chlorinating (`super-chlorination’ in KWA parlance) the piped water for the past several years.

The pleas for a modern water treatment plant at Sabarimala have fallen on deaf ears. Neither the high- power committee nor the government has taken efforts for a proper water treatment system yet.

Now, the authorities are exploring the possibility of supplying drinking water to the pilgrims after purifying it by reverse osmosis (RO), even as experts warn that chlorinated water cannot be treated through the reverse osmosis process.

The Deputy Director of the Periyar West Division had informed the High Court on the ``serious challenges posed to the forest environs and the animal wealth’’ from the indiscriminate dumping of plastic bottles in Sabarimala forests every pilgrim season.

The viscera examination of dead elephants in the area had shown presence of plastic, including bottles, that they had eaten.

A report by the Deputy Director pointed out that the TDB had made an undertaking to the Supreme Court as far back as in 2005 promising to take care of the waste management in Sabarimala. But 10 years since, this assurance remained on paper. The recent death of a sambhar deer pointed to the blight of wild animals in the Poomkavanam dying from eating plastic wastes. Earlier, in the first week of November 2015, a wild elephant had died at Pampa after it ate plastics.

It said the range forest officer, Pampa, had found the carcass of a sambhar deer in a waterhole on the Sannidhanam-Saramkuthy trekking route on December 28, 2015. The post-mortem revealed that it had died after ingesting a huge quantity of plastic wastes (4.7 kg). It was quite certain that the animal consumed the plastic waste in the Poomkavakam itself. The source of plastic waste at Poomkavanam was pilgrimage-related, on account of ``excessive commercialisation of pilgrimage activities,’’ the report affirmed.

It reasoned that plastics soaked in food stuff invariably attract wild animals as they frequent the salt licks, which are deposits of salt and other minerals that wild animals are provided for getting essential mineral nutrients. Since plastics laced with remnants of food with a salt/sweet taste resemble salt licks, wild animals consume it, with fatal effects.

The report said it was unfortunate that this situation was on in spite of the efforts of agencies such as the Suchitwa Mission, Punyam Poomkavanam, Sabarimala Sanitation Society (SSS) and NGOs like Ayyappa Seva Sangham.

The report also pointed out that the SSS, entrusted with the responsibility of removing garbage from the trekking route, was in fact dumping the entire waste material they collect from the trekking route and nearby commercial centres in the forest.

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