In a major initiative to keep Kerala’s panoramic beaches clean and green, the Tourism department on Monday launched the ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ campaign as a collaborative movement of tourism sector stakeholders and local community on the occasion of the World Environment Day.
Minister for Tourism and Public Works P.A. Mohamed Riyas inaugurated the mega beach clean-up and awareness campaign on the famed Kovalam Hawa Beach in Thiruvananthapuram. The programme was organised by Responsible Tourism Mission (RT Mission) in association with District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC) and Tourism Club.
Joining the people who volunteered to take part in the drive, Riyas said everybody was duty-bound to keep the tourism centres in the State clean and the government had taken up massive campaigns against use of plastics. Noting that ‘Tourism and Green Investments’ was the slogan of World Tourism Day 2023, he said tourism and green initiatives complemented each other as they reflected the aim of the current world.
Mr. Riyas said Kovalam was an important global tourist destination and there would not be any gaps in the cleaning drive. “As an alternative to plastics, RT Mission and other agencies are giving training to local community for making paper bags and cloth bags. It will also generate income for local people,” he said. Mr. Riyas also exuded confidence that tourism stakeholders and entrepreneurs would fully avoid plastics and rely on locally made products as alternatives and set an example for the world.
The Minister also launched the distribution of 1,000 cloth bags made under the ‘Smarter Choice of Greener Tomorrow’ campaign by RT Mission through its ‘Clean Kerala Initiative.’ ‘Discard plastic, guard Kerala’s beauty’ is the theme of the campaign, which saw people gathering in large numbers for cleaning up the famed beach that marked Kerala prominently on world tourism map. State Coordinator, RT Mission, K. Rupeshkumar, welcomed the gathering.
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