Beach Beautification

Chennai will be all smiles and shines by this time next week. Confused? Wondering how?

For the seventh straight year, Chennai Trekkers Club are once again organizing a massive drive to clean up the Chennai Coasts. CTC was established in 2008 by a group of trekking enthusiasts. As there is no membership fee or any other hidden charges, the group began to expand slowly and gradually by strong word of mouth. As of today, there are more than 27000+ members in this non profit nature of business which purely thrives on equal sharing and volunteering basis - be it for the treks or any awareness initiatives. This has ensured the tremendous success of CTC which has a very solid loyal base in South India due to their infectious passion and commitment shown towards the environment.

I have been a part of this initiative thanks to Gopi Krishnan Rajkumar. It's really amazing to see 1000s of volunteers bustling with energy on the quiet early hours of a Sunday morning to ensure that our city is green. Kids, Youth, Corporates, 60+ young men and women gather up @ multiple locations teeming with fire and spirit in teams to improve and make better the condition of the coasts.

How many times we would have said that Marina Beach is littered with garbage? Now is the opportunity for us to make it right. That's how I saw it when I started to take part in this initiative. It is not only merely collecting the rubbish from the beach but also the segregation is done according to the category as Hard Plastics, Soft Plastics etc. so that it will be easy to dispose or recycle.

Some might feel it would be demeaning to pick up the wastes left intentionally or unintentionally by others. Still others might think that how could this be a permanent solution when the shore is bound to get mucked up immediately after the clean up. I agree that it is only a temporary fix and a long term solution is the order of the day by means of eliminating the source that causes the beach pollution in the first place. It's like you have a disobedient child at home who refuses to change his bad habits. What do we do? Incrementally ensure that the child is disciplined. In the same way, constant awareness is being given to the slums near the beach. Rome was not built in a day. The seeds of awareness are being sowed by the CTC members on a regular basis to the people living along the shores. The effort will take time to fructify.

In the mean time, as Gandhi rightly said "Be the change that you want to see in the world". Everyone can make a difference in our own small ways but the sumtotal of the combined effort is ginormous.

Depending on the location, team strength and the volume of waste present, the exercise can go up to noon. At the end of it all, when you look at the beach after your own herculean efforts and see that our Stink aagura Chennai is transformed into Singara Chennai, for once, you will realize that your sweat is sweet.