Thiruvananthapuram: Kovalam, God's Own Country's most popular beach, is becoming a waste destination as well. Plots beside the Beach Road are dotted with waste bags. However, since it is an everyday story for local residents, it does not even register as a problem for them. Tourists on the other hand react sharply. A British tourist Paul Copson was so distressed, he went around asking local residents about it. Many of them laughed him off. The rest merely nodded with sympathy, and said, it is a mess, but did not own up to it. This was strange to Paul especially as he felt they themselves could be the contributors to the waste mount.
People at shacks beside the beach say that refuse is regularly collected. This is done by an agency called Ecopreserve entrusted by DTPC. However, the people living in the houses beside Beach Road admit to dumping waste beside the road. They say that they have no other means to dispose of the waste. The responsibility to keep the beach clean rests with DTPC, but the Beach Road comes under the Corporation. While Corporation advises source-level waste management within its limits with sufficient technical support, Corporation officials said that the Vizhinjam councillor had never requested for kitchen bins.
“However we can immediately do a clean-up. Moreover, Kovalam can be one of the wards where the next year’s kitchen bin project is implemented,” said an official. When Paul took to Facebook, some tourists offered to start a clean-up. “I strongly feel though that the high levels of disposed of plastic bottles, plastic plates, food waste and broken glass along with plastic bags full of household waste make it a dangerous exercise and should only be carried out by the relevant government department,” says Paul in an email he wrote to Steve Muscroft, an expat living in Kovalam.
