More than three tonnes of garbage was cleared along a 13-km stretch of Coonoor ghat road on October 2 by over 400 volunteers in a clean-up drive organised by the Pasteur Institute of India to celebrate Swachh Bharat Diwas along the highway and also portions of the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) line.
Volunteers from the Pasteur Institute of India, Coonoor, other organisations and the Non-Governmental Organisation ‘Clean Coonoor’ participated in the drive. Despite the ban on single-use plastics in the Nilgiris, more than 90% of the waste collected was plastic waste, with over 75% being plastic PETE bottles.
According to volunteers, a majority of the waste was accruing in viewpoints where tourists stop regularly to take pictures, near food trucks stopped by the sides of the road as well as informal “picnicking spots” by the side of the road. They said the waste collected indicated that tourists continued to bring banned plastic bottles into the district and discard them by roadside.
