Cleaning Up Plastic Waste Sucks

In case you've ever wondered, clearing up old plastic waste from a riverbed is a really shit job.

Not that it isn't important. It's necessary, and about the only way to get heavily polluted rivers back to health. Never fully remediated and pristine, because this stuff endures decades and centuries, but functional and healthier.

But actually doing the work is no picnic. It’s slow, continually bending over or crouching down to pull plastic from the soil to put the waste into a large (plastic) sack. And it can smell really bad too.

Our local partner in Aurangabad, EcoSattva, organises clean-ups as part of its wider environmental work. We were lucky enough to join one cleaning up the Kham River. We joined a range of volunteers early on a Sunday morning. EcoSattva does a great job of making it fun with a local band playing afterwards with food and refreshments too.

Here are some images…