Army of volunteers clean up beaches in Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam: An army of volunteers from various organisations, institutions and associations joined hands to deliver a message loud and clear. Armed with protective gear and carrying sacks of disposable covers, many were seen heading to the sea shores in different parts of the city to contribute their share in the clean-up campaign organised to mark the International Coastal Cleanup Day here on Saturday.

ENC undertakes coastal cleanup drive: International Coastal Cleanup Day was observed by the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) for the eighth consecutive year. On the occasion, a record number of over 3,000 Naval personnel, Defence civilians, their families, KV School children NCC and SCC cadets undertook massive coastal clean-up drive at several stretches of the beach.

The drive was inaugurated by Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, ENC Vice-Admiral Atul Kumar Jain at R K Beach. Subsequently, he also took part in the clean-up drive and assisted in collecting the litter.

The drive was held at Ramakrishna beach, Tenneti Park, Yerada beach, Jalaripeta and Jodugulapalem among other areas. A special skit was also played to demonstrate the ill-effects of sea pollution and the need to preserve the environment.

The event was aimed to create awareness among the people to keep beaches clean and safeguard the environment.MPs and officials take part: Meanwhile, MPs V Vijayasai Reddy and MVV Satyanarayana, Commissioner of Police R K Meena, District in-charge Minister Mopidevi Venkataramana, MLA Tippala Nagi Reddy and a host of officials from various departments took part in the clean-up drive.

On the occasion of the International Coastal Cleanup Day, the National Centre of Coastal Research (NCCR), MoES and Centre of Studies on Bay of Bengal took up beach cleanup drive near Kailasagiri foothills on Saturday.

Around 170 students from the Departments of Botany, Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Centre for Studies on Bay of Bengal, Environmental Science and other subjects participated in the event.

A rally was organised by Andhra University to mark the day and was flagged off by Vice- Chancellor of AU (additional in–charge) P V G D Prasada Reddy. More than 100 gunny bags containing plastic water bottles, glass bottles, iron scrap and disposable items were collected during this event.

Beach clean-up by India Youth For Society: Volunteers of India Youth for Society (IYFS) participated in the clean-up drive with around 70 employees of Amjur Technologies. Together they collected litter strewn at Sagar Nagar Beach in addition to a huge amount of glass bottles, footwear and emptied coconuts.

The team believed that the biggest menace on the beaches is food-package materials (plastics include sachets, bags, wrappers etc) and beaches have become a common place for consuming alcohol.

Tenneti Satya, Ajit Vadlapudi, Keerthana, Chandra Sekhar, Venu and others have participated in the clean up driveWWF-India: The beach cleanup drive was organised by WWF-India in partnership with Greenko and Green Waves and Live-In Adventures on Saturday.

Over 100 citizens, including volunteers, came together and collected 337 kilos of litter from Lawson's Bay beach. The cleanup drive saw children and adults turn up on the beach in large numbers to pick up the trash littering the beach. CCF (WL), Forest Department, Rahul Pandey took part in the programme.