12,000 tonnes of floating rubbish cleared from Vijayawada canals

Vijayawada: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation staff removed 12,000 metric tonnes of floating rubbish from the city's three major canals—Bandar, Eluru, and Ryves—along with the Budameru rivulet over the past year. Plastic litter, particularly single-use items, formed the bulk of the waste cleared from the canals, which serve as irrigation and drinking water sources for villages downstream in Krishna and Eluru districts.Waterbody conservation experts noted that while the civic body focuses on deploying boats and sanitation personnel to clear floating waste, it has failed to evolve a permanent solution to prevent plastic and other rubbish from entering the canals. As a result, pollution continues to choke the waterways."Residential structures constructed abutting the canal bank embankments discharging household waste into canals, and drain outlets which directly discharge sewage water and rubbish into canals, are 2 major reasons due to which canals get choked with plastic litter and other rubbish. VMC failing to strictly enforce the single-use plastic ban is another reason for piles of plastic litter ending up in the canals," says Vijayawada taxpayers' association President MV Anajaneyulu.Anajaneyulu adds: "The civic body responsible for the protection of the 3 water bodies is among the culprits polluting the 3 canals, wherein a number of drains discharge water into canals through drain outlets. Yet, the civic body did not evolve a comprehensive action plan to prevent this pollution in canals."According to VMC officials, the civic body was leveraging the services of an advanced Truxor machine, along with 2 manual and 3 mechanised boats, 4 drivers, 3 supervisors and 20 workers, to clear the rubbish from the canals round the year. However, there seems to be no permanent solution to prevent littering of canals in the city.