Nearly 5,000 Mumbai residents came together in an effort to clean up the city of Mumbai, beginning 1 June. The effort was concentrated on nine beachfronts, four rivers and certain mangrove areas simultaneously.
Mumbai has several volunteer groups engaged in cleaning up these locations. Many of these banded together under the Jallosh-Clean Coasts initiative, headed by a not-for-profit organisation called Project Mumbai.
Participants included environment groups, citizen volunteers, state agencies, students and corporations.
“There are a lot of groups dedicated to cleaning beaches, but they all work in silos. Project Mumbai brought all of them together. We passionately believe in creating social transformation through scale. A bigger noise compels the government to take notice. Moreover, it also brings ordinary citizens out into these public spaces, making them see the scale of the problem, equipping them with the necessary skills to clean them and eventually getting them to spread the message to their families, friends or office colleagues,” said Shishir Joshi, Project Mumbai Founder, according to The Better India.
The most amount of trash was removed from Dana Pani beach and Mithi River. Over 7,000 kg trash was removed from nine beach fronts and 8,000kg trash was removed from Mithi and Poisar rivers on Saturday and Sunday, reports The Hindustan Times.
The campaign ended on World Environment Day.
(With inputs from The Better India and The Hindustan Times)
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