Over one-and-half tonnes of waste was removed from the Srinivasapuram hamlet, the nearby beach and the river close to the Adyar estuary, by volunteers of the Zero Kuppai Movement on Sunday.
Over 50 volunteers, including foreign nationals, started work around 6 a.m. and finished cleaning after 9 a.m.
“There are more than 4,000 houses in Srinivasapuram, but there are only eight garbage bins. Hence, people dump waste on the seashore and near the lake,” said C. Krishnamurthy, a resident of the locality.
Ashok Rajendran from the Zero Kuppai Movement said in other places there were three bins for a colony with just 200 houses. “Residents are living in very bad conditions and are vulnerable to health problems,” he said, adding that the Chennai Corporation had to do something at the earliest about garbage collection.
Newlyweds
Among the volunteers, were Roopa Chozhan, a doctor, and her husband Thomas Habel, a German national, who works as a project coordinator in the city.
They met during the floods and got married last Sunday. Since they plan to leave the country in May, they wanted to do as much volunteering as they could. Their marriage was a plastic-free one.