29th December 2019 11:57:59 Hours
An island-wide beach clean-up project, organized by the Sri Lanka Army as one of its core Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects in close coordination with the Marine Environmental Protection Authority (MEPA) that relates to the National Coastal and Marine Resources Conservation programme worked off Sunday morning (29) with more than 2300 troops joining hands together with volunteers and state employees round the country.
The Commander of the Army, Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, the architect of the project along with his two daughters, several Senior Officers and Other Ranks was at the Crows Island (Kaaka Dupatha) beach in Muttuwal, Modera to flag off the mega project, covering the coastal belt around the country.
The mega clean-up operation in the Western province got to a start soon after the Commander arrived at the venue and made his way straightly to polluted beach area wearing hand gloves. In his remarks to the Media at the occasion, the Commander urged the general public living along the banks of the Kelani river to keep off from throwing pollutants, like plastic bottles, non-decaying pollutants of toxic nature, etc into the river as those elements are generally carried to the Modera estuary.
One of the Commander's Australia-based daughters, a scholar on marine pollution told the Media that her researches have so far confirmed that plastic pollutants, being thrown into river waters in Sri Lanka by careless civilians help produce carcinogenic toxic substance in shoals of tiny sea water fish, generally consumed by the general public.
14 Division and 58 Division troops of the Security Force Headquarters - West covering Colombo, Negombo, Galle and several other major beach areas along the coastal belt from Matara to Puttalum simultaneously commenced the cleaning project with hundreds participating.
Major General Jagath Gunawardena, Commandant, Sri Lanka Army Volunteer Force, Major General Mahinda Mudalige, Commander, Security Forces - West, Major General Chula Abeynayake, General Officer Commanding, 14 Division, Major Genenral Jayashantha Gamage, Military Secretary, Major General Nilantha Hettiarachchi, Chief Signal Officer, Major General Suraj Bangsajayah, Director General General Staff, Brigadier W.L.P.W Perera, General Officer Commanding, 58 Division, along with a few hundreds of Officers gave the lead to the mega community project. The project would continue regularly at respective regions on a routine basis, considering the density of the pollution and the need for such cleaning.
Members of civil organizations and volunteers also took part in Sunday's drive hand in hand with Army troops.Best Authentic Sneakers | Nike Dunk - Collection - Sb-roscoff
