Kerala fishermen are not just looking for fish in the sea. They are harvesting plastic waste from the ocean to build roads.
When fishing trawlers drag their nets through the water, they scoop out huge amounts of plastic along with fish. Until recently, the fishermen threw the plastic back into the water. However, Kerala’s fisheries ministry launched Suchitwa Sagaram or the ‘Clean Sea’ campaign that educates fishermen about a sustainable disposal mechanism for plastic waste. Once all the plastic waste caught by the fishermen reaches the shore, it is collected by people from the local fishing community – all but two of whom are women and fed into a plastic shredding machine. The shredded plastic is converted into a material that is used as an asphalt substitute/supplement in road surfacing.
In Suchitwa Sagaram’s first 10 months, fishermen removed 25 tonnes of plastic from the Arabian Sea, including 10 tonnes of plastic bags and bottles, according to a UN report.
Plastic road surfacing makes roads more resilient to searing heat. The melting point for plastic roads is around 66°C, compared to 50°C for conventional roads. Every kilometre of plastic road uses the equivalent of a million plastic bags, saving around one tonne of asphalt. India is home to two of the ten rivers globally that contribute 90% of the plastic waste choking the oceans, and every Indian, on average, generates 11 kg of plastic waste every year.
Picture Credit : Google
