1. Recap
On June 19th, 4500 volunteers from 140 organizations, NGOs, corporates, individuals removed 38 tonnes of garbage from 20km of Chennai beaches during the 7th edition of the Chennai Coastal Cleanup. At the same time volunteers segregated 56% (21 tonnes) as waste which could potentially be recycled to prevent sending it to the landfill and reduce impact on the environment.
Post CCC a dedicated group of CTCians did 2nd level segregation in 9 different recycle categories (from left to right / top to bottom):
1) PET Bottles
2) High grade plastics: water/milk/curd/oil packets
3) Plastic Glasses
4) Plastic Spoons
5) Plastic/Aluminium Caps
6) Thin Plastics wrappers
7) Glass Bottles
8) Tetra Packs
9) Metal/Aluminium
The segregated materials were further sent to Earth Recycler, Recycle Partner of the Chennai Coastal Cleanup who shared below final recycle / savings statistics:
| S.No | Details | No of Bags | Quantity |
| 1 | Pet bottles | 60 | 750 Kgs |
| 2 | Water packets | 25 | 1065 Kgs |
| 3 | Water cups | 55 | 725 Kgs |
| 4 | Caps | 10 | 200 Kg |
| 5 | spoons | 5 | 90 Kg |
| 6 | Mixed plastics | 20 | 500 Kg |
| 7 | Bottles | 12000Kg |
Quantity of waste collected and sent to respective authorized recyclers after segregation are 750Kgs of Pet bottles, 1065 Kgs of water packets, 725 Kgs of water cups, 200 Kgs of caps, 90 Kgs of Spoons, 500 Kgs of mixed plastics and a total of 3330Kgs of plastics and 12000 Kgs of Bottles.
2. Why Recycle?
Recycling conserves resources
Used materials are converted into new products, reducing the need to consume natural resources. If these are not recycled, new products are made by extracting fresh, raw material from the Earth.
Recycling saves energy
Using recycled materials in the manufacturing process uses considerably less energy than that required for producing new products from raw materials – even when comparing all associated costs. There are extra energy savings because more energy is required to extract, refine, transport and process raw materials ready for industry compared with providing industry-ready materials.
Recycling helps protect the environment
Recycling reduces the need for extracting (mining, quarrying and logging), refining and processing raw materials all of which create substantial air and water pollution. As recycling saves energy it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to tackle climate change.
Recycling reduces landfill/dump sites
When we recycle, recyclable materials are reprocessed into new products, and as a result the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites reduces.
3. Savings
What is the contribution to the environment by recycling? By recycling the waste, we end up saving tons of Carbon di oxide released in to the atmosphere.
| Items | Kgs | Tonnes | MT of CO2 eq |
| Plastics | 3330 | 3.33 | -3.2317317 |
| Bottle | 12000 | 12 | -11.64588 |
| Total quantity | 15330 | 15.33 | -14.8776117 |
By cleaning the beach for one day and collecting the waste we contributed to saving 14.88 MT of CO2eq.
From the waste collected from The Chennai Costal Cleanup 2016 the following environmental savings are possible:
By recycling 3330 Kg of plastic, you impacted the environment by saving:
· 21193.75 kWh of electricity. That's enough to power the average home for 725 days
· 7130.275 Liters of oil
· 359.705 million btu's of energy
· 110.1 cubic yards of landfill space.
The total quantity of waste collected 15330 kg. All of this was successfully diverted from being dumped to a landfill thereby preventing pollution of our environment.
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