Chennai, May 28 (IANS): Tamil Nadu's Ranipet district has created a world record with 20,000 vounteers collecting 186.914 metric tonnes of plastic waste in just three hours.

With his, the district has surpassed Switzerland which collected 128 metric tonnes in the same time span.

In a statement on Saturday, the Ranipet district administration said that 20,000 volunteers drawn from all sections of society collected 186.914 metric tonnes of waste within three hours on Friday. The drive commenced at 7 a.m.

The intensive cleaning drive was held across 288 village panchayats, six municipalities, and eight town panchayats in the district. Single-use plastics were recovered from residential buildings, empty plots, roads, highways, companies, and commercial establishments.

Nine adjudicators from four organisations -- The Elite World Records, Asian Records Academy, Indian Records Academy, and Tamilian book of Records -- certified the record.

The Ranipet district collector M. Bhaskarapandian was the driving force behind the drive. The district collector while speaking to IANS pointed out: "The event was held to spread the message on environment protection and that our existence is threatened due to environmental degradation. We must protect it and pass it on to the next generation."

He had earlier conducted inspections and searches across the shops and establishments and confiscated a large volume of single-use plastics. The single-use plastics that are confiscated are shredded into pieces and used for mixing in the road construction work.