Kudos! 120 Kayakers Clean Half a Ton of Waste From Kerala’s Chaliyar River

Our water bodies are being indiscriminately dumped with waste from households, construction sites and toxic effluents from industries. These rivers and lakes that were once a place for being one with nature, bird watching and enjoying water sports are now in a state of complete mess filled with tons of plastic waste.

Even the remotest and most isolated water samples taken from across the globe have been found to have micro-plastic beads present in them. It is estimated that by 2050, our oceans will have more plastic particles than fishes. It is already known that consumption of plastic kills thousands of birds and fishes annually!

This year, Saahas Zero Waste partnered with Kozhikode based, Clean Rivers Initiative to spread awareness on responsible waste management and how it affects our rivers.

Three members from the SZW team – Sabira, Ashish and Vishal participated in the Chaliyar River Challenge 2017- an annual fully-guided river expedition of 68 km over three days, starting from Nilambur and ending at Beypore where the river meets the Arabian Sea.

Over 120 kayakers from different countries were present this year, and collected plastic covers floating on the river. Bottles, shoes, milk and chips packets were found along with a lot of plastic carry bags. The kayakers were able to collect around 500 kg of waste over the three days.

The aim of this event was to promote our rivers for adventure tourism activities and attract local and international eco-tourism enthusiasts to our area. In addition, this event was equally aimed at promoting usage of our rivers for leisure, water sports and thereby to create awareness among people on the adverse effects of pollution in our waters and the need to keep it clean.

SZW team members on the day

The beautiful Chaliyar river

And the collected waste!

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