Clean-Up Drive At Mithi River Banks, Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC)

“Mithi river” has lost its definition of being a river. Riverbanks have been a support system of the civilization for centuries. However, looking at the Mithi river today, it doesn’t seem anything like that.

Over the years, Mithi river has become dumping waters for raw sewage, industrial waste as well as municipal waste. Some parts of the river are heavily flooded with organic waste such as cattle rearing waste, sludge and water hyacinth impacting the ecosystem of the river. Sadly, the river has lost most of its ecosystem because of the pollution caused by various sources.

“The world is moving, but the river, is not and it is on us and only us.” says project manager Mr. Ketul Patel urging the companies to join the project “Sustainable BKC”

On 30th April 2018, Earth5R team did a clean-up drive on the banks of Mithi river to initiate the program “Sustainable BKC”. The clean-up drive was aimed at preventing the plastic waste lying on the river banks from entering the river.

The team consisted of Alan Watterman, Ishit Patel, Ketul Patel and Saurabh Gupta. Looking at the efforts, local community members also joined the event. The team collected more than 20 kilograms of plastic waste. In the end, the collected waste was donated to the ragpicker Mr Ravir. The purpose of donating it to him was to break the chain of waste dumping into the landfills. Mr Ravir would further segregate the waste and sell it to the recyclers generating livelihood for himself.

Earth5R is promoting a model of a circular economy by including the ragpicker community into the waste management cycle. The model brings a robust change in the economics around practices of waste management.

Sustainable BKC program aims at involving the corporates, companies, and industries of the region to join hands for building a clean, green and sustainable Bandra-Kurla Complex.