THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With a fresh tourism season round the corner, a garbage explosion of sorts threatens to undo the charm of Kovalam. Sewage waste has blended with the brown beach sand and roadsides leading to the destination will be littered with food and plastic waste.
All attempts to clean up the destination, including a mass action by the South Kerala Hoteliers’ Forum, had failed. The tourism department's ambitious plan couple of years ago to install biogas plants in 1,500 households in the area too was improperly implemented. Biogas plants were installed only in 110 households and even this has now ceased to function.
“Businesses in the area should take up most of the blame for the increase in sewage waste,” said Jaison James who runs an NGO near Vizhinjam.
“There are innumerable small and medium hotels that have not installed a sewage treatment plant in their properties. The normal practice is to disgorge their sewage tanks into the beach under the cover of night. During the season, the volume of waste generated will be huge,” Mr James said.
The other big issue is the arrival of big vehicles, buses and tempo travelers, during the season. “These are one-day tourists and they bring their own food. When they leave, they dump their plastic waste along the road side,” Mr James said. It is estimated that 80-100 buses reach Kovalam daily between November and March.
“Till now, authorities have not thought of creating awareness among such travelers. Some punitive measure should be in place,” said John Pulinkunnam, a former bureaucrat who resides near Poovar.
Proliferation of plastic waste is the other worry. “We take plastic and other waste from hotels. But the problem is the non-cooperative attitude of some houses, bunk shops and the Kashmiri shops in Kovalam. Instead of segregating the waste, the way hotels do, and handing it over to us, they dump the waste in their backyard,” said Vijayachandran of EcoPreserve.
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