Revellers leave behind 22 tonnes of garbage on two city beaches

CHENNAI: Chennaiites littered the Marina and

Elliot’s

Beach with bottles, food containers and paper packaging while celebrating the New Year.

Conservancy workers cleared 16 tonnes of

garbage

from the Marina, twice last year’s amount. Another six tonnes was cleared from Elliot’s Beach. Last year, the garbage weighed 15 tonnes.

Beach vendors had good business till late into the night. But neither they nor the revellers took care to keep the sands

clean

. The Marina was a mess, even though the civic body had put up colour-coded garbage bins to

segregate waste

.

Sources in the civic body said every day around two toness of garbage is cleared from the two beaches, but the quantity rises during festive occasions such as Pongal and New Year.

“Last year, eight tonnes of garbage from Marina and seven tonnes from Elliott’s was removed,” said an official from the health department. He expressed disappointment that visitors to the Marina did not use the colour-coded dustbins.

The corporation, which usually employs 125 workers to clean the Marina and 14 workers to clean Elliott’s Beach, hired extra manpower on January 1. “Totally 248 workers – 202 at Marina and 46 at Elliott’s Beach – were posted for conservancy operations,” said an official.

The

Marina Beach

Road was cleaned up overnight before regular morning joggers and walkers turned up and workers had started clearing the sands of litter. CR Balaji, a Mandaveli resident, who visited the beach early on Monday had no complaints about the conservancy worker. But he was worried about what would happen in less than two weeks. “It will be very bad during Pongal,” he said.