Sangeetha Dirties Beach, after Residents Clean-up

6 February, 2010 -- A truckload of food and packaging wastes from Sangeetha restaurant in Sardar Patel Road was found dumped on the banks of the Adyar River less than a week after city youth and residents cleaned up the Besant Nagar beach stretch in an effort led by the Reclaim Our Beaches initiative. According to Urur Kuppam Fisher Panchayat member and ROB volunteer K. Saravanan, the wastes were dumped on 5 February at around 1.30 p.m. by a person who had taken the contract for clearing Sangeetha's garbage. All commercial and residential wastes in the Sardar Patel area are to be cleared by Neel Metal Fanalca which has the contract for clearing and disposing the garbage. The primary responsibility for disposing this garbage belongs to Sangeetha restaurant, according to ROB.

Archanaa Sekar, a ROBber was unsettled at "the amount of trash one restaurant generates in one day". She said there was every possible type of waste out there- dry waste, wet waste, organic, inorganic, bio-degradable and stuff that would outlive us by a couple of centuries.

According to ROB, this kind of fly-by-night dumping was standard practice by commercial institutions across the city, and this instance should serve as an alarm call to tighten regulation and enforcement.

Urur Kuppam residents and Reclaim Our Beaches have alerted the authorities about the incident, and urged them to take action against the principal violator -- Sangeetha Restaurant.

The trash was cleared later this evening, after a few ROB investigator lodged a police complaint, bringing the authorities to the scene of the crime along with officials from Sangeetha Restaurant.

Please also read blog entry here

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