2,500 kg waste removed from city mangroves

Mumbai: Since the last three clean-up drives conducted at mangroves in the past one month, around 2,500 kilogram of garbage have been removed by the State Mangrove Cell. During a cleanliness drive at the mangrove site across Dahisar river on Sunday, 1,000 kilogram of waste was removed. The mangrove cell officials said 90 per cent of it was made of plastic.

The garbage clean-up in Dahisar was organised as a regular activity adopted by the State Mangrove Cell across the year. Volunteers of various non-governmental organisations, the State Forest Department and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), India too contributed to it.

“More than 20 big sacks of garbage were recovered from the mangrove area in Dahisar. There were all kinds of waste but most of it included discarded plastic bottles,” said Michael Saldanha, project director, WWF India.

Despite several measures adopted by the mangrove cell to curb the dumping of garbage or any kind of encroachment in the mangrove areas, officials said most of the garbage comes from the high tides. “The tidal water brings along the garbage, which gets stuck in the mangroves roots. We have been trying to create awareness among the citizens to discard the use of plastic and stop dumping the garbage into the rivers. The accumulated garbage choke the mangroves that are the lifeline for the marine ecosystem and act as a barrier to floods,” said Makarand Ghodke, assistant conservator of forest, State Mangrove Cell.

During the last cleanliness drive at the mangrove sites in Marve, Malad and Navi Mumbai, 1,500 kilogram of garbage was removed. The group will also be heading to other sites like Bhandup, Versova, Charkop and Gorai.

In the earlier series of clean-up drives around 1 lakh kilogram of garbage was removed from mangroves across the city in a month.