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Mount Lavinia beach gets a clean up after repeated complaints
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The Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia Municipal Council on Friday started removing plastic waste and garbage washed up on Mount Lavinia beach following complaints from area residents, hoteliers and environmental groups.
Dehiwala- Mount Lavinia Mayor Stanley Dias said the cleaning of the canal was to follow.
“We keep urging people to refrain from dumping garbage into the canal. Yet, despite our appeals, people continue to do so. We have now decided to clean the canal on a daily basis,” he added.
He said they were aware that garbage washes up at the beach due to the lack of a mesh barrier at the mouth of the canal. Drug addicts had removed the mesh.
Mr Dias said they hope to fix a steel fence.
Residents said that plastic accumulation in the area has been unusually high of late. They told the Sunday Times that they believe that the plastic waste is being washed into the sea from the canals in Dehiwala and Wellawatte.
A resident said earlier, respective local councils took measures to clear the canals and minimise the flow of waste into the sea, but the practice had stopped over the years.
He said that the Dehiwala – Mount Lavinia MC only turned up to clean the beach after repeated complaints.
A hotel employee who also declined to be named, said that he too believed that the plastic waste was being washed into the sea through the canal as it had not been cleaned for months.
“In the past, we have seen MC workers place a wire mesh across the canal to trap the plastic waste and then regularly collect the waste matter which is mainly plastic bottles. But for some reason that practice had stopped,” he said.