Over 500 students clean up Juhu beach on International Coastal Clean-up Day

The year has seen Mumbaikars indulge in multiple clean-up drives across various city beaches. However, the drive that took place on Juhu beach on Saturday morning was thoda hatke — over 500 students had flocked to the beach with just one goal — to do their bit for their beloved city’s environment and the ocean.

School kids got together along with NGOs and young volunteers to not just clean the beach, but also attended on-site talks on waste segregation, participated in the city’s first-ever clean-up competition, and walked away with prizes for collecting the most amount of trash. What was interesting is kids from all sections of the society — street kids, underprivileged children and kids studying in

international

schools — worked alongside each other in tandem as they learnt things related to

coastal

clean-up.

Educative skits were staged at the event to ensure that students learn basic, yet essential things of keeping the surroundings clean in a fun, playful way. The organisers made the event interactive as they believe that the best way to ensure the future is safe is when kids are taught to take care of the ocean and the environment without being preachy. Rhea Chhabria, from

India4Oceans

, and one of the organisers of the event, said, “Our whole purpose was to teach students about the importance of waste segregation and acknowledge the efforts required to clean the beaches while building a sense of social responsibility.”

Psychiatrist Dr Anjali Chhabria, who also was one of the organisers, said, “We divided all the kids into groups and had a beach clean-up competition. They were taught how to segregate the trash they collected —into organic wet waste, dry waste, recyclable waste and plastic waste. They were also taught to

compost

the wet organic waste, recycle the dry waste, learn ways to reduce plastic waste consumption and more.” Rhea added, “Children are the future of tomorrow and by imparting knowledge to them we are not only teaching them, but also educating their relatives, parents, friends, school mates — the reach is much larger.”

Most students these days are already sensitive to our eco-system and feel strongly about all the topics related to it. For them, the sessions held by volunteers and talks on waste segregation turned out to be quite enlightening. Describing his experience at the beach as “inspiring”, Krish Rao, a participating student, said, “This event was really an inspiration for me. I learnt so much about how this environment that has raised us and our parents but if we don’t take care of it right now, our future is bleak. Waste-segregation is essential as we must cut out major problems at the root level.”

Seconding him, Hriday Doshi, 13, added, “I came to know that sea turtles often confuse plastic to be jelly-fish, which they eat and die. This is really harming our marine life.” Another student Trisha Hinduja said, “Each one of us can save the ocean by preventing harmful waste like plastic coming into it.”

One of the popular topics at the drive was that of waste management. Aryaman Bhatia, a student, said, “Cropping the problem of mixed-up waste right at the root, is by segregating it at home, rather than cleaning the ocean after it has been choked by city waste.” Seconding him is Arya Desai, who added, “We learnt how natural waste, electronic waste and plastic waste should be dumped separately in an organised manner, so that it does not harm our ocean or the earth anymore.”

Segregating waste will crop the problem right at the root, rather than letting environmental hazards to come to ocean and then go to clean it

Educative plays held on-site ensured that students learnt about basic yet essential things in a fun, playful way

School kids from across all sections of the society, along with NGOs and young volunteers, got together for the event

Volunteers explained all about waste segregation to the kids at the event

Mission accomplished for Mumbai’s little eco-warriors

With Mumbai kids taking efforts to learn all the right things to protect the ocean from trash, the city might just be taking a step in the right direction to not just regaining its place as an environment-friendly city, but also reclaiming its beaches, which was once a major attraction.