The audience was elite and had spent thousands of rupees on entry tickets
NAVI MUMBAI, Jan 23 (The CONNECT) – Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) which has launched Zeo Waste campaign during the high-profile Coldplay concert in the city has collected over 100 tonne garbage from the event area.
NMMC collected 82 tonnes wet and dry garbage over the three days of the event from outside the Dr D Y Patil Stadium, while the organisers cleaned up 20 tonnes from inside the premises.
The entire garbage was transported by the civic body to its disposal sites.
The stadium with a capacity of 75,000 people was jampacked on all the three days – January 18, 19 and 21 – as Coldplay fans from not only Navi Mumbai and Mumbai but across the country poured in.
The Zero Waste was successful from the NMMC point of view, municipal commissioner Dr Kailash Shinde said.
The Thane district part of Navi Mumbai, a top ranker in the Swachh Bharat campaign, is making all out efforts to top the charts.
For the uninitiated, the planned city of Navi Mumbai cuts into Thane and Raigad districts. NMMC administers the Thane part stretching from Dighe to Belapur.
NMMC deployed 100 people and drafted 150 Parisar Sakhi volunteers and was in action from 10.30 PM to 3 AM after the concert.
Expressing concern at the largescale garbage generation, environmentalists have said the audience should have been enthusiastic about responsible disposal of the trash.
“The audience was elite and had spent thousands of rupees on entry tickets and the 100-tonne herbage reflects badly on their concern for the Swachh Bharat,” said NatConnect Foundation director B N Kumar.
He pointed out that the fact that the collection process lasted over five hours on each night shows the scale of the trash littered all around the area – just the event venue.
Appreciating the civic drive, activist Jyoti Nadkarni said the audience should also be held responsible.
The event organisers could have worked with the NMMC for putting up large bins to simplify the garbage disposal, said another activist Madhu Shankar.
