(TAN): Two tourists in Karnataka were tracked down and made to drive back 80 km to clean up pizza boxes they had dumped in Madikeri.
Madetira Thimmaiah, General Secretary of the Kodagu Tourism Association had been keeping a close watch in the area “to curb the garbage menace” in the hill station, he told Bangalore Mirror.
When Thimmaiah spotted the empty pizza boxes, he found a bill that had the offender’s phone number. On being contacted, the tourist apologised but refused to return to the spot, saying he was 80 km away and already outside the Kodagu region.
[ALSO READ: Tourism Nova Scotia, Airbnb collaborate to promote safe tourism]
With the help of police, Thimmaiah then launched the social media campaign in which he made the litterer’s phone number public. Consequently, the duo was flooded with phone calls requesting them to clean up the mess. Embarrassed, they returned to the spot to bring back the trash.
To fight the littering, authorities across the globe are coming up with innovative ideas. Some months ago, Khao Yai National Park of Thailand collected the trash left by tourists in the park, packed and mailed them to those who had dumped them.
