The ‘Clean up Versova’ drive hit its crescendo on Saturday, when over 500 residents, Bollywood celebrities, BMC labourers and UN officials, including Eric Solheim, Chief of United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) and Lewis Pugh, the UN Patron of the Oceans, gathered to manually remove over 2.84 lakh kilograms of trash from the 2.5-km long beach, effectively making it the biggest beach clean up in history.
Started by local hero and lawyer Afroz Shah, the drive by Versova Residents Volunteers (VRV) is now in its 43rd week since October 2015, and becomes bigger with each passing weekend.
The Sheer Will of Citizens
Apart from the UN dignitaries, representatives of the All India Plastic Manufacturers Association, members of the Koli Samaj, lawyers from the Andheri Bar Association, students from the Whistling Woods International Film and Television Institute and Bollywood celebrities Pooja Bhatt and Deepak Dobriyal also joined the efforts, making it an overwhelming success – a feat considered worthy enough for UNEP to go live during the clean up drive, straight from Versova!
After the beach clean up, members of VRV sailed towards Malad creek with local fishermen in their boats and held nets while pulling out more than 1,000 kilograms of plastic bags and food wrappers.
A Ray of Hope
Every inch of the beach was covered in litter when we began. We picked up 673 shoes within a radius of just 10 metres. By the end of it, everyone came together with one mission, to protect our environment and make history.Lewis Pugh, maritime lawyer, campaigner of clean oceans and Patron of the Oceans, speaking to Hindustan Times
A spark has been ignited with the success of this citizen-civic model of beach clean ups. Pugh will be submitting a report with findings to the UNEP, and will assess whether this model can be replicated across South Asia and the world.
This is a campaign that needs to be funded, planned and scaled, the beach segmented and it needs four stakeholders, government, businesses, media and citizens to each play a role. Ultimately, however, government and local administration is responsible for ensuring beaches are clean and rivers are clean and that is not a responsibility they can delegate to citizens who pay taxes to see that beaches are safe and clean.Lewis Pugh, speaking to Mid-Day
Even before flying down to Mumbai, Pugh wrote to CM Devendra Fadnavis inviting him to join the drive, but received no response.
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