The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Teens show what it takes for a clean Marina

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 25, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Teens show what it takes for a clean Marina

Staff Reporter

Sunny rays don’t dampen their exercise

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

FOR A CAUSE: Students of Chintadripet Higher Secondary School undertook a clean-up of the Marina Beach on Wednesday.

CHENNAI: As the sun rays fell on the Marina beach and the shore slowly began to throb with life on Wednesday, an unusual sight of a group of students bent in two, scanning the sands for garbage, was certain to catch the eye.

The Interact Club of the Chintadripet Higher Secondary School, in association with the Rotary Club of Madras, organised a beach clean- up on the Marina, spanning the stretch between the Kannagi statue and the Lighthouse.

Around 150 students of the school participated in the programme along with 10 teachers. The headmaster, assistant headmaster and faculty counsellor also joined the action.

Faculty counsellor A.Dillibabu said that the project was part of the school’s social service initiative undertaken every year.

“This year we wanted to do this to show how important to keep the beach clean. In the process of cleaning up the beaches we also want to create awareness of this aspect,” he said.

After just two hours of the cleanup, the students had managed to fill 10 50-kg bags with waste.

One of the students, who were busy stuffing a bag, said that he mainly found plastics.

“Plastic bags, cups, bottles, wrappers just about everything made of plastics,” the teenager said.

His classmate said they also found quite a number of bottles. Cigarette packets also made up a large chunk of the garbage closely followed by paan sachets and thermocol.

As the sun started to rise and the heat beat down, the students’ job became tough. But, they were on a mission and were not planning to give up.

“We would continue at least till 10 a.m. and hopefully would have been able to do our part in keeping the beach clean,” an enthusiastic student said even while getting back to the cleaning exercise.

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