Tamil Nadu begins mission to clean plastic waste in rivers

Tamil Nadu government has decided to take up another mission of clearing plastic trash in the rivers using interceptors developed by a Netherlands-based organisation called The Ocean Cleanup.

The decission is part of its Rs 1,675 crore-worth “Tamil Nadu Coastal Restoration Mission” with the help of the World Bank.

The state environment department will implement the mission to clean plastic trash in rivers for 14 coastal districts, including Chennai.

The environment secretary of TN Supriya Sahu said in a social post X: “Plastic trash interceptor could be a very effective intervention to We will work on several initiatives like plastic trash interceptors to prevent plastic pollution.”

“CM Thiru @mkstalin has just sanctioned the TN Coastal Restoration Mission for 14 coastal districts in TN at a cost of Rs 1675 Crores. We will work on several initiatives like plastic trash interceptors to prevent plastic pollution” she further added.

A recent research has shown that rivers are like highways that transport 0.4–4 million metric tonnes of plastic from human inhabited land into the oceans.

A recent study, published in April this year, states that roughly 1000 rivers account for 80% of all the riverine plastic waste that flows into marine environments.

While previous research from 2018 identified ten of the largest rivers in the world as the top plastic waste carriers, including the Indus, Brahmaputra, and Ganges from India, this new study reports a more complicated picture.

The found that smaller rivers that pass through heavily populated areas can often carry more plastic than larger rivers.