Save The Beach (STB) has expressed concern over the dismantling of the NGO’s Vilimale’ headquarters by the Male’ city council.
The city council started clearing out the headquarters on Friday without informing STB, the NGO said in a statement. The headquarters had been set up in a plot awarded under a 2012 contract for Vilimale’ beach cleanup work.
The Civil Court ruled on June 5, 2023 that the city council’s halting of construction work at the site was in breach of contract and the case has been appealed to the High Court, STB said.
However, as the dismantling of the workstation began on a public holiday without any notice to vacate and before a hearing could be scheduled at the High Court, the NGO said it lost the opportunity to find alternatives to store equipment and recyclable material collected from Vilimale’ beaches.
The NGO said it had not been informed of the council’s plans to clean Vilimale’ beaches in the future. At present, sweepers from the Waste Management Corporation (WAMCO) clear up leaves from the beach twice a week but STB cleans up all the plastic and other trash left by picnic-goers.
“According to our estimates, a little over 6kg of trash is littered across the beaches every single day. Our NGO collects trash from three beaches, which we’ve furnished with over 40 dustbins that are cleared daily. Unless the beach gets cleaned daily, these beaches will likely return to being trash-filled, as was the case 12 years ago,” the STB statement read.
STB said it will not remove the dustbins until it has assurances that another party will take over cleaning Vilimale’s beaches. However, the NGO stopped collecting recyclables due to the lack of space for storing equipment.
