The monsoon brings its own set of challenges when it comes to cleaning waste from the city’s 19 beaches, activists have said. “We see a significant drop in the number of volunteers during this season due to travel restrictions. From the 100 volunteers we see on a regular basis, it comes down to 40,” said Malhar Kalambe, founder of Beach Please.
Due to excessive rain and waterlogging, the clean-ups have had to be cancelled frequently. “We constantly keep an eye on weather forecasts to ensure our group’s safety. Our clean-ups generally revolve around low tide periods, during which there is a wider area to clean,” Chinu Kwatra, founder of Beach Warriors, said.
The season also sees a huge number of water snakes and blue bottle jellyfish on the shore. “We have volunteers who specifically keep an eye on their younger counterparts. We also carry first-aid boxes and brief people before every clean-up to avoid stray incidents,” Mr. Kalambe said.
While the teams usually pick up the garbage manually, at Versova beach, Reliance has installed a Bobcat sand cleaning machine. Afroz Shah, a lawyer who spearheaded the clean-up drive at the beach, and his volunteers removed 25 million kg of waste in just one weekend last month.
Efficient machines
While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has put up several beach cleaning machines all over Mumbai, the equipment lacks the efficiency of the Bobcat machines.
Mr. Shah made a case for more Bobcat machines. “With the help of the machines, we have been able to significantly reduce garbage in the ocean. They keep cleaning throughout the week and are extremely helpful during low tides that occur in the early hours,” Mr. Shah said. “One can make out the difference between Versova beach and Dana Pani, as the latter struggles with a considerable amount of garbage. The BMC should replace their machines with Bobcats at all 19 beaches,” he said.
The Mithi river has also become the focus of cleaning efforts. The river tends to flood during the monsoon and the garbage stuck in the river bed worsens the situation. Describing the conditions of the river at Mahim last weekend, Mr. Kalambe said, “The Mithi river clean-up is extremely taxing. Unlike the ocean beds, the river doesn’t throw out the garbage. We have to manually take it out. We also deal with a lot of domestic and manual waste as people use this spot to carry out daily ablutions.”
At the end of the day, the activists said citizens have to do their bit.