"Not Only Pollution, It's A Fight Against Mindset And System," Says Mumbai's Accidental Environmentalist Malhar Kalambe

A school reunion turned youth movement that garnered participation from 4.5 million volunteers, and effectively cleaned up 8.5  million kilograms of waste from the beaches of Mumbai, such is the achievement triggered by a simple mindset shift in Mumbaikar Malhar Kalambe.

In an exclusive interview to Republic Media Network, the 27-year-old self described "Accidental Environmentalist" transformed the beaches of Mumbai after returning from his trip to Bali, Indonesia.

Whlist taking a stroll on a Mumbai beach, the visibilty of waste post Ganesh Chaturthi puzzled him into mulling why is it not the case in other countries. However, after his mother advised him to take onus, it was the onset of a movement that grew larger with his intent.

Recalling his mother's simple advise, Malhar Kalambe said, "If you think the beaches aren't clean go and clean them."

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"So I called up my friends, which seemed like a mini-school reunion as 20 of them showed up and we cleaned the entire beach stretch. However, the high tide brings back waste to the beach. Later, what began as a reunion turned into a youth movement," he said. 

In a period of "395 weeks we have cleaned approximately 8.5 million kg of trash, orgainsed 800 clean up drives, engaged 4.5 lakh citizens", the Mumbaikar said.

His initiative called ‘Beach Please’ has also garnered attention from celebrities like Alia Bhatt, who recently partnered with Kalambe's movement to conduct a beach cleanup drive. This further drove the attention of citizens to take up onus. 

Highlighting the biggest challenge towards such eco-friendly drives, he said, "Not only pollution, its a fight against mindset and the system."

In his early days of organising clean up drives, Kalambe said, “Initiallly, three to four indiviuals would show up. As I was pursuing my graduation and preparring for C.A , things came to a point were I had to drop out to continue with clean up drives. Arranging funds was also difficult.” Recently, the clean up drives organised by Beach Please, which are 90 per cent self funded, have been recognised with a National Creators Award.