India’s beautiful beaches are full of litter

Our long coast line thousands of KMs long is full of trash. A trip through our western coastline would treat you to scenic views, sandy beaches and huge amount of trash.

Image: Gokarna – Om Beach on west coast.

Image: Gokarna – Beautiful sunset on Kudle beach

But before you crucify the local communities living near the beach – pause. They are not entirely to blame. Yes they get their fair share of blame as locals and panchayats/village bodies should ensure regular cleaning of beaches and develop good habits (not littering). But there is another culprit – city dwellers like us. On a close look at littered beaches – i found things like child car seats, western toilet seat covers, electronics etc. Much of this is household waste from cities that our municipalities (or illegally) are dumping in rivers/ocean ultimately lands up in beaches as ocean throws up all the litter.

Its a shame that India has such a vast and beautiful coast line – think of it – from the salty marshes of Gujarat to lush green back waters of Kerala, western ghats along the coast, mangroves of bengal. Three seas – Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, Arabian sea. And i haven’t even touched on islands – Andaman/Nicobar, Lakshwadeep.

And still we dream of holiday in Maldives or South east asian countries like Thailand etc. I don’t blame the outbound tourist – no one wants to experience trash laden beaches on holidays. In our daily life we see flith everywhere that holidays are supposed to be escape into beauty of nature.

So what do we do about it?
We can’t wait for our panchayats, government machinery to wake up – it is we citizens that need to start this cleaning.
Actions that can be taken at individual level:
– Acknowledge that filth, trash, garbage is an issue and be vocal about it. Problems are fixed when we all complain about issues to everyone around, write about it and make it a priority for our governments. Saying everything is fine by looking away will not bring change.
– Geenerate less waste. Think before you buy – do you really need that new set of shoes? If yes then give preference to sustainable products. Daily routine we use disposable cups, plastic bottles – many of them ended up on beaches. Many of our beaches can be renamed as ‘Bisleri’ beaches considering amount of Bisleri trash lying there. Simple action of carrying your own refillable water bottle and asking restaurants/hotel to fill it up with RO water can go a long way. If you can’t trust hotels with RO water then how you can trust them with your food?
– Cleaning up: Cleaning up public spaces can’t be left to civic bodies. We can do volunteer work and do weekend cleaning within your neighborhood community. This will not only clean surroundings but also inculcate a culture of service and cleanliness. Our society at large thinks cleaning is someone else job (govt workers). Many people give argument that they can throw trash anywhere as in the morning it will get cleaned up anyways.
It’s time to take ownership of our actions.
– Coach children: Coach your children to take action today. Encourage them not to throw litter around their play area. If they see any litter it is OK to pick it up and throw in the bin. Teach by example. It will only teach children to take ownership and become good leaders. Unfortunately the maid culture at home encourages laziness and culture of entitlement. Asking children from early ages to help in house chores will go a long way in inculcating good habits.

You would be thinking we started with public beaches and ended up at home – but isn’t that the truth that great nations are built one step at a time and it all start at an individual level.
To end this on a positive note – here’s a ‘BLUE flag’ beach near Mangalore that had tens of workers employed to keep a stretch of 200 meter clean. Beyond that 200 meters of managed beach the story was the same – filth everywhere.