New Delhi: The ethereal beauty of beach lies in the hands of the citizens and time and again this has been proved by the beach crusaders. From Mumbai’s biggest clean up at Versova beach to cleaning the aftermath of Cyclone Ockhi, Mumbai’s beaches have witnessed various clean up drives in the past few years. Making an entry to the list of clean up drives, Beach Please, a weekly clean up drive initiated by 20-year-old, Malhar Kalambe is here to give a rich new look to Mumbai’s Dadar beach.
During Ganesh Chaturthi, I happened to visit Dadar Beach and I was blown away by how ignorant all of us can be towards our environment. I decided then and there that I need to do something to improve the condition of our beaches as it was my duty as a responsible citizen. I consulted my mother and hence we came up with the idea of Beach Please, says Malhar Kalambe, founder of the clean up drive called Beach Please.
“Gali Gali Mein Shor Hain, Ganda Humara Shore Hain!” was the slogan that flagged off this group’s beach clean up on September 10, 2017. As of now, without any gap, the group has organised 15 clean up drive. In the past 15 weeks, with the help of 22 core member and 40-50 volunteers joining in every week, the group has managed to remove 55,000 kilos of trash from the beach. Out of the waste collected, 80% was noted as plastic waste.
The only sad thing is that every week we clean a stretch of roughly 300 metres which takes us around 3 hours, but when we come back on the next Sunday, the condition of the beach is same, says Malhar.
Talking about the reason behind facing the same problem every week and conducting the same drill every Sunday, Malhar says,
Many a times when we are cleaning the beach we come across people who instead of supporting the cause, make the situation worse and difficult by littering at that very moment. Despite knowing and seeing that cleanliness is underway, there are few individuals who drop waste. On a few occasions we even had heated arguments. The problem is that people are not well informed.
In the coming weeks, the clean up brigade plans to educate people about waste segregation, waste management and waste disposal. The group thinks that waste should be treated as a resource and not as a liability and for that waste segregation at source is very important.
Volunteers cleaning the Dadar beach
Every week, the volunteers of Beach Please wake up early in the morning with the aim of giving new lease of life to their beach. Every week, the volunteers make efforts to give something back to the nature. Every week, the swachh crusaders tend to bring a change instead of sitting and waiting for someone to come and save the mother Earth.
Malhar signs off with a question to ponder upon, “I have cleaned my bit, have you?”
