The morning after, school and college students clean up beaches
A day after thousands of Ganpati idols were immersed in the sea with great fervour, the city showed equal enthusiasm in cleaning up beaches on Thursday.
A day after thousands of Ganpati idols were immersed in the sea with great fervour, the city showed equal enthusiasm in cleaning up beaches on Thursday. The Ganeshotsav central coordinating committee, which participated for the first time in clean-up activities, managed to rope in 370 school and college students for their ‘punarvisarjan’ drive. “150 youngsters signed up, but a lot more eventually turned up to re-immerse the Ganpati idols,” said Naresh Dahibawkar, president of the committee.
While workers from the civic body were in-charge of the major clean-up work, the punarvisarjan team cleaned all small litter at Girgaum, Juhu and Dadar beaches.
Meanwhile, several non-profit organisations also independently contributed to the cause. The Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA), a forum of schoolchildren, had over 1,000 students cleaning the shores of Powai Lake, Juhu beach and Girgaum Chowpatty.
“This year, we found the beach to be far dirtier than last year,” said Vinodini Lulla, chief co-ordinator of CMCA Mumbai. “This is the best way to sensitise children to the responsibilities we need to shoulder, even while we celebrate our festivals.”
At Powai Lake, more than 200 student members of the NGO Young Environmentalists’ Programme (YEP) helped collect and segregate flower waste to be recycled as vermi-compost. “A festival is not successfully complete without giving back to nature what we got from it,” said Elsie Gabriel YEP founder.