Chennai Coastal Cleanup 2015

As part of our Initiatives towards sustainable living we at Saint Gobain Research India (SGRI) took part in the 6th Chennai Coastal Cleanup campaign organized by the Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) in association with Clean Chennai, an initiative from the Chennai Corporation. Fifty volunteers from SGRI along with 5500 other volunteers from all over Chennai cleaned up 29 tons of garbage from the beaches between Marina and Pondicherry.

Chennai Coastal Cleanup, is an initiative to create awareness among the public on the environmental impact of the increasing garbage footprint and health hazards of plastics. 120 major Corporates, NGOs, schools and other groups participated in the event on June 7th Sunday morning between 6-9am. The volunteers segregated garbage in three major categories: 15% glass, 38% recyclable waste (plastics, sandals, cardboard, fishing nets, etc.) and 47% of non-recyclable waste. 53% of the total volume of garbage collected will be recycled by Earth Recycler and the remaining garbage will move to the garbage dump.

The SGRI volunteer team cleaned up the Thiruvanmiyur beach along with 620 other participants to collect 62 bags of trash. The statistics of the trash collected is shown below.

Several family members and children of SGRI employees also participated in the event. It was a field learning for Children to understand the fragile nature of our environment and why we should care for them. Working in a team with other volunteers and their parents they also had fun while doing the important task of cleaning the beaches. SGRI would like to indulge in more such campaigns in future as well as make a habit for every employee to reduce and recycle trash in everyday life be it at home or office.