Muscat: Days after the authorities imposed ban on visiting beaches along with various other measures aimed at containing the spread of Covid-19, Oman's otherwise clean beaches have emerged cleaner with no litters and very less plastic wastes.
This was not the case some weeks ago, as a large amount of waste littered recklessly by some beachgoers, was removed by volunteers with the support of the municipalities and the Royal Oman Police (ROP) from different beaches.
"The amount of waste at the beaches has reduced by around 90 per cent due to very less number of beachgoers in the past few days," said Ammujam Raveendran who spearheads the voluntary beach cleaning campaign.
A study conducted by the National Centre for Environmental Conservation suggests that, along with Al Athaiba and Al Hail beaches, Quriyat and Barka beaches have the highest rate of waste pollution, which are spotted with discarded plastic bags materials as the most common waste. Plastic bottles, empty chips packets and fishing nets are followed by wood and other wastes.
The study, titled ‘The environmental efficiency of beaches in Muscat Governorate and Wilayat Barka’ revealed that during the study alone, 3,926 pieces of waste weighing 85.48kg were collected from an area of 1,300 meters from thirteen beaches spread along the coastline of the Sea of Oman.
"During one of the beach cleaning campaigns called 'save Oman beaches' that is carried out by our volunteers, we collect more than 500kgs of waste on each weekends from various beaches," said Raveendran.
Definitely, the litter from reckless picnic goers is reduced in the past few weeks and nature is at its best without any harmful interference from humans," the volunteer group noted.
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