After a 10-day long festival, Ganesh Chaturthi came to an end on Tuesday, September 25, 2007, with the idols of the Lord Ganesha being immersed in water. Hindu worshippers are reported to be increasingly returning to the humble clay and paper idols in a bid to avoid pollution caused by the immersion of thousands of idols in water during the festival.

Singing hymns and beating drums, long processions wade into the water to submerge the idol to mark the natural cycle of creation and dissolution. The effects are typically felt in the environment for weeks after as idol fragments, made mostly of plastic and plaster of Paris, wash up on shores and toxic chemicals from the paints pollute waters and poison fish.