World record from waste: In Tamil Nadu, 20,000 Ranipet residents collect 186 mt of plastic
This surpassed the records of Switzerland's 128 metric tonnes of plastic waste collection in the same amount of time.
Published: 28th May 2022 12:40 AM | Last Updated: 28th May 2022 12:43 AM | A+A A-
Image used for representational purpose. (Photo I EPS/Prasant Madugula)
RANIPET: Around 20,000 volunteers in Ranipet on Friday set out at 7 am on a mass cleaning drive, covering all corners of the district. Within three hours, they managed to not just collect 186.914 metric tonnes of plastic but create a world record for the largest collection of plastic waste, said a district administration statement.
This surpassed the records of Switzerland's 128 metric tonnes of plastic waste collection in the same amount of time.
Collector D Baskarapandian on Friday inaugurated the mass cleaning drive from 7 to 10 am, with the motto to make Ranipet free from single-use plastics. This achieved the record of 'largest plastic waste collection drive within 2,500 sq. km in three hours.' Nine adjudicators from four organisations -- the Elite World Records, Asian Records Academy, Indian Records Academy and Tamilian book of Records-- certified the record.
The event was held to create awareness and spread the message, D Baskarapandian told TNIE. "This record should be broken so that the environment is protected. Our existence is threatened due to environmental degradation. So we must protect and pass it onto the next generation," he added.
The intensive cleaning drive held across the 288 village panchayats, 6 municipalities and eight town panchayats in the district witnessed participation of 20,000 volunteers. This includes conservancy workers, government employees, local body representatives, college students, NCC, NSS cadre, MGNREGA workers, SHGs and the general public. Single-use plastics have been recovered from the residential areas, empty plots, roads, highways, companies and commercial establishments.
Baskarapandian earlier conducted a series of inspections at small shops, markets and other places and seized the use of banned single-use plastics. In recent months, around 34 tonnes of single-use plastic waste was confiscated from the traders and shredded into pieces. The plastics are used for laying roads and sent to cement factories, the Collector explained.
