As a part of our
ongoing initiative on looking at solutions, and not just list problems
concerning managing Goa’s waste, we focus on plastic bottles on Goa’s beaches. This
is aground report from South Goa
VARCA: “While
we decided to take stroll along Varca beach towards Caravela Resort, we were
shocked to notice the garbage washed back ashore during the monsoons. But it
was interesting to note what really was the composition of this garbage and
most of it are plastic mineral water bottles,” explains Thierry D’Souza, a
Geography graduate who explains to Team Cafe the problems with
ballast water released by ships which affects marine life. Not the same water
is trapped in these hundreds of plastic mineral water bottles, endangering
marine life critically.
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Similarly Piedade Pereira, explains
that the fishing ban was lifted at the start of August but the biggest problem
that fisherman like her husband who are small boat owners are facing is the
number of water bottles that get stuck in the nets and how these even rip the
nets while folding them into the boat.
NO
WATER ON THE BEACH, SO MINERAL WATER BOTTLES FROM SUPERMARKETS ARE BROUGHT
“The
simple problem at Salcete is that mineral water bottles are sold by super
markets almost a kilometer away from the beach while shacks sell that same
water bottle at Rs 40 compared to its original price of Rs 20 and even worse
the shacks are dismantled and unavailable during the monsoons making access to
water on the beach impossible unless one carries a plastic bottle adding to the
garbage at sea,” explains Jeremy D’Souza a Mumbai based tourist at Benaulim
beach.
WHY
CANT WATER BE SOLD IN CANISTERS?
The
government allots vegetable kiosks across Goa, retail grocery and commodity
kiosks outside government colleges and even food stalls outside railways
stations, bus stops and parking lots. In a scenario like this why can’t the Goa
Tourism Department run a basic kiosk at the beach selling water in canisters?,
questioned the local fishermen who have to deal with the garbage menace in sea.
“The
simple solution to this menace is to have small government run kiosks that sell
water by a paper cup or in a refillable bottle carried by the customer. These
kiosks exist at railway stations, airports, in towns then why not on the beach. Had
government run eateries sold the basic amenity of water on the beach, it would
be our step to reduce garbage from mineral water bottles,” explains Suraj
Dessai another passerby at Varca beach who’s more worried on stepping on a
plastic bottle and twisting his foot than on stepping on sharp shells and
rocks.
Simplicio
Fernandes, Varca who works as a captain on the ship explains to us how people
concerned with marine life and the high seas in other developed countries have
a continuous environment audit keeping a tab of the quantities of plastic
commodities purchased by shipping vessels, fisheries boats and vendors along
the coast.
“If
each vendor upto two kms from the beach and each registered boat owner could
place on record the plastic commodities purchased by them and declare its usage
and disposal, we could have a responsible system and clearing garbage from the
beach and not have a problem of torn nets, broken debris from fiber glass
boats, bottles from shacks and tourist strewn all along the beach and hurting
marine life in the sea,” asserted Simplicio.
“
It’s easier to keep the beach garbage free and ban usage of plastic bottles
rather than organize beach cleaning drives and having beach cleaning squads.
Goa needs squads to monitor a garbage free beach. If you see the weight of a
mineral water bottles, it’s about 0.5 mgs and as such you need hundreds to make
a kilo. A viable sale of plastic waste would be like ten kgs which means, a
beach cleaning vendor can’t even dispose the plastic waste collected by them
for about three months because of the lack of volumes”, points out Armstrong
Menezes from Benaulim. Hence a site has to be allotted to store garbage.
Armstrong
shows us how a garbage storing site catches the attention of local
hoteliers and small home rentals along the beach who mistake these for a
garbage dumping site and illegally dump their garbage outside the property
causing a stench, coupled with leachate and littering.
Those
living on the cvoats as well as tourism stakeholders feel that the tourism
department should think later of shower rooms, changing rooms, granting music
fests licences and hosting adventure sports in Goa but its basic priority should
be to make drinking water available at Goa’s beaches and eliminate all incoming
garbage that mostly comes from mineral water bottles which is choking marine
life across Goa.
“The
only way you know a part of Goa is unexplored or over explored is because of
the presence of plastic garbage, be it on our beaches, the pine trees growing
around the beaches, the patches of forest covers or even the lovely waterfalls
across Goa that are strewn with broken bottles, filthy picnic paper plates and
garbage from plastic cups, alcohol bottles and cold drink pet bottles.
