When In Doubt, Don't Throw It Out - The Shadows Of Life #21

Beach Cleanups are fun.
Last Wednesday, the 6th of September our club had organized a beach cleanup and it was commendable to see that so many people turned up on a Wednesday morning sacrificing their sleep and took the responsibility on their own shoulders.

The beach cleanup was fun and it seemed like we were making a difference and that made me feel really good about myself.

Back in 2015, a lawyer named Afroz Shah, after nearly two years of picking up garbage converted the Versova beach from a shithole to a mesmerizing beach.

This cleanup drive had slowly turned into a big movement and in total they removed a staggering 11 million pounds of trash from the beach and its surroundings.

Want to hear something depressing though?
Thats about half the garbage this city produces in one day.This is really a serious problem and we all ought to do something about it.

Its not like there are no ways to treat the waste. Of course there is Recycling, incineration in plants , converting them to fuel and some more. The problem is that there is only one incineration plant near dumping ground of Deonar where the mountains of waste keep getting bigger and bigger as our waste production increases. Also not to forget incineration should be our last resort as it produces toxic gases which are proven to cause cancer related disease as well as harm our lungs badly.

The MCGM is surely trying to cope up with the garbage problem but as the population increases the waste increases and it seems to be growing on an exponential scale.

So the real solution would be not to generate so much waste in the first place! We need to integrate it to the household level and make everyone aware about this crisis. The household level segregation of dry waste and wet waste must be implemented by all individuals, housing societies, offices so that waste does not end up in landfills but is processed and reused.

Leo Akshay Shah
Social Media Head,
Leo Club Of Juhu.