Berhampur: More than 150 students of various educational institutes on Saturday took part in a rally by giving slogans and holding placards depicting various quotes on beating plastics and keeping the ocean and beach trash free at Gopalpur on the International Coastal Cleanup Day.

The Berhampur University's marine sciences head Pratap Kumar Mohanty said: "When we talk about beating plastics and keeping the ocean and beach trash free on the 482km coastline and 26 public beaches in Odisha, we know that pollution menace is contributed 92 per cent by tourists. The rest 8 per cent is because of the fishing activity."

"Though there are other sources of pollution, including ports, we have to make our tourists aware to reduce the pollution," said Mohanty.

"The status of ocean pollution is quite alarming and may become graver if we are not aware and conscious about it to check the pollutant at the source and also the ways and means of preventing it," he said.

The clean-up programme was conducted on the Gopalpur beach covering a total area of 23,256 sqm and debris collected were about 36kg of 20 items.

However, the top ten items, according to their number, are plastic bags, plastic straw, food wrappers, tobacco packets, paper plates and cups, wooden spoon, plastic glass, water pouch, plastic bottle caps and thermo cools," said project scientist of the department of marine sciences Asim Amitav Pattanaik.

"We collected the debris on the beach, segregated those, made a list with weight and found the report," he said.

According to the report of International Coastal Cleanup last year, roughly 15 to 51 trillion plastic pieces (93,000 to 236,000 tonnes) float in the world ocean at any given time. The startling fact is that eight million metric tonnes of plastic enters the world ocean each year which are equivalent to 22,000 Jumbo jets in size and 30,000 elephants in weight. The coastal clean-up campaign, involving more than 100 countries across the world, is a small step in this direction, and the general public is requested to join it, Mohanty said.

The authorities concerned are yet to take any concrete step to discourage tourists and local people from dumping plastic garbage into the sea, sources said. Moreover, lakhs of tourists visiting the beach also dispose of plastic goods on the coasts. The shopkeepers near the beach are responsible for aggravating the menace.

However, Gopalpur notified area council executive officer Uma Shankar Sethi said the beach clean-up was essential. "The Gopalpur NAC generates one tonne of garbage per day. But, we have not yet recorded how much garbage is generated on the beach," Sethi said.

"The total number of staff members for sanitation here is five, and we need another 10 to keep Gopalpur clean," he said.

Students from the Berhampur University's NSS wing, department of marine sciences, Gopalpur College, Khetra Mohan Science College, Narendrapur, Ram Narayan College, Dura, Saraswati Sishu Mandir, Gopalpur and staff members from the Goaplpur NAC, IMD Gopalpur, ZSI Gopalpur and Gopalpur Ports Ltd took part in the drive.