Two women toil to clean 1km stretch of Chennai's Thiruvanmiyur beach

CHENNAI: The thousands of people who throng the Thiruvanmiyur beach generate nearly a tonne of garbage a day over the weekends but there are just two women who break their backs, sweeping the 1km stretch.
On contract with a private firm, Alliamma and Kalaiarasi work spend Saturday and Sunday nights cleaning up ice-cream wrappers, food waste, loose papers and plastic, bottle pieces and cigarette butts."I have been working for 6,000 a month for the past three years," Alliamma says.
The two dustbins on the beach are grossly inadequate for the amount of garbage strewn around by the thousands who come there over the weekends, eating, smoking and even drinking either on the sand or on the more than 100 stone benches.
"There were three dust bins earlier. One of them disappeared overnight," said K Raj, an ice-cream vendor who parks his cart at the busy entrance, attracting customers by the minute.
"Since a lot of ice cream wrappers are strewn around my cart, I dragged a bin from a nearby park bench and placed it here," said Raj, pointing to a tall blue bin. The other bin is placed strategically at another busy spot, next to another ice-cream cart. There are no other bins on the vast beach.
Alliamma feels the place needs at least three more bins. "I have to bend and pick up loose waste all night from 7pm to 4am. It would reduce my burden if the people use the bins," she said.
On Saturday last, in the evening, there were about 12 ice-cream carts on the beach road that was teeming with walkers, joggers, lovers and drunken youth in their cars. There were also vendors selling peanuts, sweet corn, bajji, pani puri and tea, all in paper or plastic cups.
Exnora International founder-chairman MB Nirmal says at least four workers are needed to clean the one-km stretch. "The vendors benefit greatly from operating at the beach but they must also give back. Authorities must order the vendors to put up their own bins next to their shop," he said.