Sea of plastic: Chennai’s plastic crisis & fight to stop marine litter

Every day, Chennai generates more than 6,000 tonnes of waste. Not all of it is collected. A significant portion leaks into the streets, drains, rivers and, eventually, the sea.

As one of India’s most waste-intensive coastal cities, Chennai faces a growing marine litter crisis. Plastic waste travels through the city’s waterways — including the Adyar, Cooum, Buckingham Canal, and stormwater drains — directly into the Bay of Bengal.

Floods over the years have exposed the scale of the problem, with hundreds of tonnes of plastic removed from water bodies after extreme rainfall events. But can this cycle be stopped before the plastic reaches the ocean?

In this film, we explore the We Segregate initiative, a citizen-led effort launched under the Urban Ocean program in partnership with the Residents of Kasturba Nagar Association. The project focuses on segregation and collection of soft plastics at source, aiming to prevent marine litter before it escapes the waste system.

The story also raises a larger question: Should the responsibility of tackling plastic waste fall only on citizens, or must packaging companies and manufacturers be held accountable too?