Over 1.5 tonnes of waste cleared from wooded area near Coonoor

More than 1.5 tonnes of waste – primarily liquor bottles and plastic waste, was cleaned up by the Forest Department and municipality staff, along with volunteers from local NGO, ‘Clean Coonoor’ from a

More than 1.5 tonnes of waste – primarily liquor bottles and plastic waste, was cleaned up by the Forest Department and municipality staff, along with volunteers from local NGO, ‘Clean Coonoor’ from a small area in Vandisolai near Coonoor on Tuesday.

Speaking to The Hindu, S.M. Sasikumar, Forest Range Officer (Coonoor Range), said that local residents as well as tipplers were dumping waste in the area. “The area is used by a lot of wildlife, and there was concern that the build-up of garbage could impact gaurs and other animals which inhabit nearby forests,” said Mr. Sasikumar.

More than 20 personnel and volunteers joined in on the day-long clean-up drive at Vandisolai. The issue of illegal dumping of waste in and around Coonoor and Kotagiri has come to the fore in recent weeks after a number of gaur were found dead, with postmortems revealing that the animals had ingested plastic waste, possibly contributing to their premature deaths.