‘Mumbai beach clean-ups inspired global campaign’

The Clean Seas global campaign that was launched in Indonesia in the last week of February was inspired by beach clean-ups in Mumbai over the past 18 months, said top officials from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Tuesday.

UNEP head Erik Solheim, on his second visit to Mumbai, told HT about the plans for the global beach clean-up and the way ahead for Indian cities to tackle other environment issues.

“Inspired by Afroz Shah and others, who have kept Versova Beach free from plastic for over a year now, we launched our international campaign, a global war against marine litter, in Bali, Indonesia, on February 25,” said Solheim. “Similar to the Versova Residents Volunteers , a group in Bali made a plan to clear their beaches of plastic.”

Over 75 weeks, city-based lawyer Afroz Shah, 33, drew the world’s attention when he removed 4.9 million kg of trash from Versova beach, cleaned up 52 toilets and removed waste from creeks, along with the civic body, local residents and fishermen. UNEP called it the world’s largest beach clean-up in history and awarded Shah their top environmental accolade – Champions of the Earth award at Cancun, Mexico, making him the first Indian to achieve such a feet.

Solheim added that other countries, including South Africa, North Africa, Yemen and Southeast Asia have also come together to reduce marine litter from the beaches. “We are trying to do three things ,” he said. “First, to inspire people to clean beaches, secondly to inspire the government to levy regulation on plastic, either through recycling or a complete ban and thirdly, work with private sector compa

and introduce better technology for effective beach cleanups.”

The UNEP team was in the city on Tuesday to meet private sector companies. “We can work with the private sector to introduce renewable forms of energy to control various forms of pollution. The idea is to move away from coal, thermal consumption for electricity to solar and from petrol, diesel vehicles to electric cars,” said Solheim.

Meanwhile, Shah submitted a blueprint to UNEP on Tuesday, highlighting the future course of action for cleaning beaches in Mumbai. “I am humbled and excited that our beach cleanup drive has transformed into an international movement We are

ment, municipal corporation and residents to work together,” he said. “Once the plan is approved by UNEP, we will be making it public.”

India, one of the largest solar players globally: UNEP

Top officials from United Nations Environment Programme lauded India’s efforts to introduce solar energy in both urban and rural areas. “We are impressed with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of a solar future with the largest solar power plant in Tamil Nadu, the solar powered Kochi airport,” said Erik Solheim, head, UNEP. “India stands as one of the largest solar players in the world and we salute PM Modi for driving that strongly as