As you go down to Betalbatim’s beautiful sunset beach and laze along the pine cones and white sands, it’s the best way to spend your summer. But to go to the beach, you have to drive past Betalbatim village and go into the streets of Nagvaddo, Ranvaddo, Pockvaddo, Gonsua, Tonvaddo and Binvaddo and the problem along these streets is garbage. Plastic waste strewn around the village has become Betalbatim’s bane.
“The problem is Betalbatim along with Majorda, Utorda, Calata, Cansaulim is a village of many guesthouses and home stays and a lot of long-term tourists live here. These tourists purchase their goods at general stores and super markets in the village and hence there is a lot of plastic garbage from the packaging and tetra packs in the village,” explains Unis Cardozo, a Betalbatim local.
While Dorothy Silva also says “unlike the past when the locals sold their vegetable produce, the numerous restaurants, hotels and locals are all dependent on the horticulture stalls for vegetables and these stalls have fresh stocks coming in daily which includes plastic bags and sacks that come as packaging for these fruits and vegetables.
While panch member Maria Fernandes explains that the village panchayat does have a weekly plastic collection drive and has outsourced the plastic collection but she admits that the packaging and increasing supermarkets and general stores in Betalbatim is cause of all the plastic clogged across the village besides the increasing construction of flats and hotels that draw people to Betalbatim.
Deputy Sarpanch Pedro Fernandes blames the sarpanch Maria Pereira and continuously changing Panchayat Secretary for the menace of not being able to curb the garbage. Pedro believes that the seven member panchayat has failed in tackling garbage for over five years besides blaming the other panch members for not being active to sort the garbage menace.
A shop owner, who runs a small general store near the market tinto, feels that the panchayat should have more bins around the village and impose fines to make shopkeepers and supermarket owners more aware of the garbage situation. But until then and the reforms, the village itself is evolving into a plastic bag.
