NGOs, volunteers tie up with TMC to clear Yeoor of plastic, trash ahead of monsoon

THANE: With the rainy season about a month away, numerous NGOs and local environmental groups have begun tying up with the forest department to clear the green zone off any plastic and other hazardous waste that could pollute the eco-sensitive zone and harm the wildlife.
Be it as part of their plogging initiative or under the banner of their Clean Yeoor concept, various citizens groups armed with waste collection bags, gloves and masks, have been flocking to Yeoor village, the air force gate area, the Manpada route, etc to manually pick up and dispose off truckloads of rubbish.

“Tourists visiting the Yeoor range often leave behind heaps of junk food wrappers, alcohol bottles during their forest trails. While this garbage is mostly seen around highly frequented areas and not in the core green zone, it gets accumulated in the nallahs,” said a city based wildlife activist.

“During monsoon, this waste overflows into the green zones, which could cause incidents of injuries and even choking amongst the wildlife. These drives not only help prevent such disasters, but also result in a growing awareness amongst citizens about the harms of littering in the forest zone,” he added.

While there have already been a handful of such initiatives here and tonnes of waste collected in each of them, forest officials claim that there is a lot more in store month.

“The community of nature conscious citizens seems to be growing as many such groups have been coming to us for permission to clean up the area from the gate to the village and so on. They tie up with the TMC, who provides them with the ghanta gadis, and then clear up the waste. There is one such drive almost every week,” said a forest official here.

While enviro-experts here believe that this trend of citizens coming together for such drives is a positive sign, they feel that it also shows that the forest department is lacking in their job of preventing the rampant littering in the forest zone.

“We used to organise such drives over the years, but there are many groups who are doing this now. While it is good that the forest waste is getting cleared up, the fact that this eco-sensitive zone has so much waste in the first place is quite shocking. ,” said Rohit Joshi, a city-based environmentalist.