CHENNAI: As the sun rose over Broken Bridge, just visible off the tip of Elliot’s Beach road in Besant Nagar, 120 student volunteers from the Madras Christian College (MCC) were seen doing their bit to clean the coastline.An initiative of the department of Marine Sciences and Coastal Resource Management of the MCC, representatives of the Templeton Group also joined the students in the event, held to mark the International Coastal Clean-up Day. It was flagged off by MCC principal, R W Alexander Jesudasan, and the garbage collecting kits were distributed by course coordinator for the programme, R Moses Inbaraj.The post-graduate students were assigned a stretch of eight kilometres, from Broken Bridge to Valmiki Nagar. Coordinator for the event, Dr Lita Sundar said, “We picked up assorted waste, and documented it. We also distributed pamphlets to the vendors on the beach and asked them to spread the word about keeping the beach clean. ”Around 44 per cent of waste entering the marine environment is from the land, says Lita. “Today, we have only dealt with the solid wastes, which make up around 70 per cent. People should realise that seas surround continents, not the other way round. What they empty into the sea today will affect some other coastline as well,” she says.Dumping sewage into the sea through pipelines, or letting waste wash into it when it rains not only destroys the aesthetic value of the ocean, but affects fisheries as well. The department has a laboratory in Pulicat for the past two years, and the students are conducting analyses to see if the area is really polluted.
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