"Champion of the Earth": as an ordinary person cleared the beach of 5000 tons of garbage

A young Indian lawyer from Mumbai Afros Shah entered into a fight with garbage, which for many years threw on Versova beach. And he won. For 86 weeks, Afros, along with the volunteers, removed 5.4 million kilograms of garbage from the beach.

In October 2015, the lawyer from Mumbai Afros Shah and his 84-year-old neighbor Harbansh Mathur were very upset when they saw the city beach of Versova - it was just littered with rubbish. Two men decided to clear the territory.

Since then, every weekend they have come to clean. Later volunteers joined them. Their number has constantly grown and reached a thousand people.

Volunteers cleaned the beach 86 weeks. They managed to remove more than 5 million kilograms of garbage from a 2.5-kilometer beach. "It was amazing to see people from the film industry, police, lawyers, fishermen and just passers-by come together for one reason," Shah said. "Officials supported us, providing everything we need - excavators and trucks."

Work on cleaning the beach ended in May 2017. "The beach is finally clean. Our efforts have borne fruit. Garbage now falls on the shore only from the sea. We asked the authorities to start cleaning the streams to the monsoon, so that the beach would remain neat, "said Afros Shah.

For his work, Afros Shah received the title of "Earth Champion" from the UN. His work was called the biggest beach cleaning in the world.