CHENNAI: You think you have saved the environment just by dropping trash into the nearest Corporation garbage bin? People from Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB) are here to say ‘No you haven’t’. They did not just stop with that but have decided to audit the trash that gathers in and around the eco-sensitive areas in the city. In doing so, the members of the environmental organisation would hold each sector — individuals, public and private sectors — responsible for the trash that makes their way out of their facilities and into the environment.The first place in the list is the Broken Bridge at the mouth of the Adyar estuary. Twenty three volunteers have already started auditing the garbage on Saturday. All the volunteers gathered at Elliots Beach, from where they proceeded to the Broken Bridge and were detailed about the campaign. “The collected garbage will be classified under three categories — biodegradable or non-biodegradable, the kind of material the trash is made up of and the manufacturers of the product thrown off,” said Siddharth Hande, one of the founder members of ROB.It is ROB’s second step, after cleaning up the beaches last year, to make people and corporates more aware and accountable of waste management. “People think that their job is done just when they put their garbage into the garbage bins. But we want them to know the waste management system in its entirety, so that they’ll understand its flaws in the current system as well,” said Siddharth. There will be discussions about better alternatives, he added. ROB has classified the Broken Bridge area into 12 zones and every Saturday, for the next one-and-a-half months, auditing of garbage will take place. The next place in line is the Pallikarani Marsh. The volunteers will also track the garbage and find out how it ended up there. The entire process will be video documented and uploaded in their website, Siddharth added.ROB has also decided to create a Trash Museum. “There are a lot of alien and irrelevant trash that are found here and we’ll exhibit them,” Siddharth said. He claimed to have found many Japanese products. “Anybody can join hands with ROB in this initiative. All that one needs to do is to come to Elliots Beach on Saturday at 4.30pm,” he said.
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