Marine plastic pollution

Since the unit’s launch in 2010 with the large-scale Litter Free Auroville Campaign, WasteLess has featured several times in the pages of Auroville Today.

On World Ocean Day in June, a dolphin washed up on to Sri Ma beach. “It was a young dolphin that had not died a natural death, possibly related to pollution, or to swallowed plastic,” says Satya Agrawal, a teacher in NESS school, who was catalysed by this event to start collecting waste on the beach.

Tsunamika, the colourful cloth doll representing post-tsunami renewal, returns in a new avatar. She has now grown into the voice of the oceans, urging us to protect our seas and, ultimately, ourselves.

The WasteLess team’s efforts to bring the issue of waste into our consciousness and inspire change in social behaviour through education have recently been taken up by the Tamil Nadu government.

The garbage heaps on the fields and along the roads leading into Auroville are increasing. What’s being done about it?