A day after the city bid adieu to the elephant-headed god, more than 1,000 schoolchildren cleaned up the beaches.
A day after the city bid adieu to the elephant-headed god, more than 1,000 schoolchildren cleaned up the beaches.
On Monday morning, the children gathered at Juhu beach, Girgaum Chowpatty and Powai lake in batches and filled bags with pieces of Ganpati idols, floral offerings, coconuts, plastic bags and thermocol decorations that had washed ashore.
After cleaning the beaches, the schoolchildren, who are associated with the Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA), have now decided to convince Ganesh mandals to follow eco-friendly celebrations next year.
“We do not have exact weight of the garbage collected, but we had bought 300 gunny bags to collect garbage and the students used them three to four times while cleaning up the beaches,” said Vinocini Lulla, CMCA trustee and Mumbai coordinator.
The garbage was picked up by the civic dumper trucks from the spots.
Tanvi Sakpal, a Class 9 student from Sacred Heart School at Worli told DNA: “We collected lots of garbage and realised how irresponsible we are while celebrating festivals. It was really disturbing to see broken Ganpati idols lying on the beach.”
The CMCA volunteers have been conducting these clean-up drives after the immersions for some years now.
“We hardly had to take any steps to make students understand the importance of spreading awareness regarding eco-friendly celebrations. We just guided them how they can make difference. They convinced their parents, friends and societies to accept the eco-friendly way of celebrating the festival,” said Lulla.
“But, this year the children realised that the main pollutants are the big and popular Ganesh mandals. We are now working on plans to spread awareness about eco-friendly celebrations among the mandals,” she added.
“I do not know how many mandals will follow our eco-friendly way of celebrating the festival. But they should at least the responsibility to cleaning up the beaches the day after the immersions People should understand the importance of keeping the city clean,” said Kashvi Golecha, a class 7 student from Villa Teresa, Currey Road.
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