The havoc unleashed by heavy monsoon rains in Kerala last week caused great damage to property in many parts of Idukki district, but it has also had a negative environmental impact as tonnes of plastic waste washed into the Idukki hydel reservoir and choked up the banks of villages further down the Periyar river.
Among the villages bearing the brunt of this river pollution is Ayyappancoil. Other areas such as Idukki Wildlife Sanctuary, Vellilamkandam, Upputhara, are also not immune, reported the Hindu on June 23. Bits of the waste have been pushed into crevices in the catchment area and is lying stagnant there.
Last week’s monsoon rains have not only caused displacement and heavy damage to property in different parts of the district, but also pushed tonnes of plastic waste into the Idukki hydel reservoir.https://t.co/VBR5rwci2l
— The Hindu (@the_hindu) July 23, 2018
The tropical evergreen area, which is surrounded by forest lands, is home to bison, samba deer, jungle cats and other animals and birds. The sanctuary, which lies close the famous Idukki arch dam, is no stranger to being a deposit of plastic waste over the years. The waste gets washed down from the upper reaches into the embankments of the reservoir, a resident of Ayyappancoil told the Hindu.
Every year, when the water level falls in December and January, the winds shift the waste into the wildlife sanctuary. Even though this is a recurrent problem, the task of cleaning up the catchment area would be a massive undertaking as there is no mechanism in place to do so yet, as a forest department official confirmed to the Hindu.
This monsoon has played out a lot worse because the heavy flow of water carried out waste from households that eventually got washed into the reservoir, a Kerala State Electricity Board Limited told the Hindu.
The forest official also issued a warning that the reservoir would soon turn into a dump if steps are not taken to rectify the situation.
The impact on life
Just how harmful plastic can be for animals and marine life is a well-known fact – year round, we’re besieged by news of how plastic waste is choking our oceans, our ground and hurting the food pyramid in every possible way.
Since the 1950s, according to a 2017 study published in the journal Scientific Advances, humans have created eight billion tonnes of plastic. Most of it now clogs oceans and landfills – only 9% is recycled and 12% incinerated.
“If you spread all of this plastic equally, ankle-deep, it would cover an area the size of Argentina,” Roland Geyer, an industrial ecology professor and the study’s lead author, told Reuters.
Plastic breaks down very slowly – one bottle can take over 450 years to degrade.
If current rates of production are kept up, Geyer warned that by 2050, more than 12 billion metric tonnes of plastic waste would fill the natural environment.
Over eight million tonnes flows into the oceans annually. In February 2017, the United Nations “declared war on ocean plastic“. At present, 30 countries are embers of the UN’s CleanSeas campaign, including the UK, Canada, France, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Norway, Italy, Costa Rica, Kenya and Peru.
Far from the oceans, thousands of animals are injured by plastic waste across the world. Many get entangled in plastic while others ingest it. A study published in The Scientist in 2017 highlighted how marine and terrestrial ecosystems have been contaminated by micro plastics, ensuring that humankind is actually on a “steady diet of plastics”.
India river pollution
Many of India’s rivers are devastatingly polluted. According to a 2015 Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report, 61,948 million litres of urban sewage is generated on a daily basis in India. Most of this flows into rivers untreated. It was also found that the number of polluted rivers in India rose from 121 to 275 between 2010 and 2015.
The sorry state of our rivers has also lead to an alarming groundwater situation. As pollution and chemicals seep into the ground, water in many parts of in India is becoming more and more dangerous. According to the National Rural Drinking Water Programme, 1.47 million people staying in 16,689 areas of the country drink water with excessive arsenic.
For anyone living in Delhi, the dreary sight of the feeble Yamuna, which is often called a ‘nallah’, or sewer, ought to be enough to gave an idea of the severity of the situation.
Though this isn’t a problem that has a simple solution – and government programmes to rectify the situation haven’t achieved all that they set out to – but as the polluted Idukki hydel reservoir proves, things will likely only continue to get worse year after year.