On the occasion of the Earth Day28th April 2019 a Beach cleanup was organized at
Anjuna in collaboration with Earth Day Network, musica guru live ,Banglanatak,
Carry Your Bottle, Sanctuary Nature Foundation, Bunkd Hostels and Guru Bar.
Every participant put on those gloves and marched with their garbage bags
picking up bits of litters and plastic. Café highlights the details.
It takes our two tiny hands to do great
work that benefits the environment. Last Sunday at Anjuna, there were many.
Hence in honour of Earth Day 2019, a Beach
Clean Up Drive at Anjuna worked the miracle in clearing at least one portion of
Goa, the famous Anjuna Beach. There were many NGO’s who came up to host this
drive along with locals from Anjuna, people from hostels, local families,
children as well as tourists who participated. It took about 2-3 hours to clean
and around 50-60 bags of garbage were collected.
It wasn’t just brooms, pans and dust… but
it was an adventure altogether with activities like a shore walk, a talk by
Carry Your Bottle organisation,and a musical concert ‘Musica’ hosted by Musica
Guru Live along with some tempting refreshments.
The main initiative behind undertaking the
Beach Cleanup Drive was to help raise beach goer’s awareness regarding the
impact of litter on our beaches and surrounding aquatic habitats.
“When I reached the location on Sunday
morning, I felt an inner sense of pride that I am going to do something good
for my Goa and the environment,” says Ryan Volado owner of Buankd Hostel and
Managing Partner Guru Backpacker Community. Ryan believes that as individuals
each one needs to contribute instead of waiting for the government to do
something. “We have done this many times in the past, but it was always Swapnil
(Naik, owner of Guru Bar and local activist) and me, this time we gathered
together a large group of people,” adds Ryan.
“We were happy that so many people turned up for the cleanup
drive. It was surprising and depressing at the amount of garbage we collected
but at the same time we were happy for doing something good,” says Yashaswini
Gopinath, Founder of Be Yoga Bound.
For some the beach cleanup drive was the first time experience.
Rajyashree Mukherjee, of Banglanatak dot com, a Kolkata based social enterprise
which also works in Goa who attended for the first time shares her experience,
“It was a fun activity where we not only cleaned but also got to hear and
learn, and people had a little bit of entertainment with the music concert
later. I also got to mingle with different kind of people, and some of us
travelled really far just for the cleanup drive. It’s inspiring see the will
and spirit, since it worked out so well we are planning to do it on a larger
scale the next time.”
Himanshu Rajpal Owner of Pappi Chulo Hostel expresses, “I had
ten people accompanying me who supported and guided me throughout the campaign
and it was a beautiful experience. According to her, Beaches are the essence of
Goa and as a citizen of Vagator she has installed some dustbins at the Vagator
beach in order to maintain the essence and not to make it trashy.
The garbage was collected and segregated into wet, dry, medical
and glass waste and then picked up by the local Panchayat. After the Anjuna
Beach Cleanup, the team has been planning to target Vagator Beach. There were
guest speakers who spoke about plastic and its minimization. The clean evening
added to the bliss of generous talk by a scientist and the owner of Carry Your
Bottle organization.
“Be the conscience and reduce the use of plastic,” says Ram
Doultani, Founder and Director of Carry Your Bottle who gave a talk on the same
day of the beach cleanup drive. He speaks about the importance of reducing the
use of plastic in own little ways. Their organization works on a principle:
Carrying our own bottle while travelling outside home and avoiding buying more
plastic water bottles from shops. If incase our bottle gets empty, Carry Your
Bottle team has opened ‘Refill Points’ at different locations where a person
can fill water in their own bottle for free instead of buying. The ‘refill
points’ are active at 20 a places in Goa.
Locals
and participants of the clean up drive admired the new active idea of the
organization and enrolled themselves in a deep discussion regarding the same
and later enjoyed to the beats of music at Guru Bar.
