The world’s largest beach clean up involving over 500 volunteers in India has been going on for 45 weeks.
Lawyer Afroz Shah, 33, and Harbanash Mathur, 84, initiated the movement to clean up Versova Beach in western Mumbai last October.
This is our world. This is our beach. Look at it and say goodbye to the trash because tomorrow we clean this mess. pic.twitter.com/M86TYSeeYH
— Afroz shah? (@AfrozShah1) August 5, 2016
“I already had an inclination to protect the environment, and then one fine day I saw huge patches of plastic and filth on the beach from my balcony,” Shah said to The Washington Post. “The amount of plastic on the beach had to be seen to be believed. It was a horrendous and disturbing sight.”
Hence, he reached out to his neighbor, Mathur, to help him. Then the two men set about picking up the litter on the 2.5 km strip of coastline.
“That’s how the journey began. The first cleanup was done by me and Mr. Mathur alone,” Shah told The Washington Post.
However, Mathur passed away in March after losing his battle to cancer, according to the New Zealand Herald.
It also reported other citizens gradually joined in on the cause through word of mouth and social media. Dubbed as the Versova Resident Volunteers, they meet every weekend to clear the beach.
Gr8 2 see global coverage of @VersovaBeach cleanup clearing > 4 million pounds of trash cc @AfrozShah1 @LewisPugh pic.twitter.com/FNPpVPyeOI
— Roxanna Samii (@rsamii) August 16, 2016
Within 45 weeks, the residents scooped over 4 million pounds of garbage. The trash included condoms, sanitary pads, tobacco pouches, and children’s school bags.
Yet, the amount of plastic on the shore is the most notable. While most of it is washed in from the ocean, litterbugs are also to blame. In addition, sometimes nearby sewage systems send plastic to the beach while carrying sewage out.
“It is the sheer quantity that is so disturbing: in some places it is shin deep,” Shah said, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “But we treat all this litter as an opportunity: the beach acts as a net to catch the pollutants from the ocean. We grab this opportunity so that the plastic is not carried into the deep sea by ocean currents.”
Head of UNEP Erik Solheim believes the movement proves that everyone has the power to turn around the damage done to the environment, UNEP.org reported.
“Every single piece of rubbish you collect today will have an impact that reaches far beyond Versova,” Solheim said, according to UNEP.org.
