In a marathon clean-up exercise that started on Friday and ended on Sunday evening, Versova citizens, who were tired of seeing their beach littered with trash, cleared as much as 22,500kg of garbage from the beach.

Versova resident Afroz Shah, who is also a Bombay High Court lawyer and played a crucial role in forming the group named Versova Resident Volunteers, started the campaign called Clean-Up Versova Rock Beach. The group has been cleaning the Versova beach every Sunday for the last 26 weeks.

"On Thursday, we were shocked to find that suddenly there was a huge amount of trash and plastic waste on the beach. It must have come from the sea. Knowing well that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) cleaning drive was far below the standard, we decided to call for the citizens' participation for a massive clean-up drive," said Afroz, adding that they learned that the biggest problem was pulling out plastic and other trash stuck in several inches of sand. Hence, they hired a "digger" as well, which loosens the top level of sand.

Along with 10 labourers, a BMC tractor and 60-odd volunteers, including locals, regular walkers and citizen groups such as Beach O Beach, which has been similarly cleaning up the Juhu beach, the group finished the exercise while braving the blazing sun since Friday.

"We collected 12,000kg of trash on Friday and Saturday. So we decided to put all the force behind and invited more people to join in for the Sunday clean-up. It went on from 2-5pm, and we collected 10,500kg of trash," said Afroz, adding that the total tally of garbage collected by the citizens in 26 weeks was 72,500kg. The group ensured that they weighed the trash after every clean-up, so that they could maintain a record and show it to the BMC to seek more involvement from their side.

Filmmaker Neerav Ghosh, a Juhu resident, who has been a part of another citizen-initiated beach clean-up project, also participated in the Versova clean-up on Saturday and Sunday. Ghosh said it was heartening to see so many concerned citizens cleaning up the Versova beach.

"We have been cleaning the Juhu beach for several months now. The situation at Versova is completely different. Versova beach seems to be completely ignored, as compared to the 'glamorous' and popular Juhu beach," he said, adding that citizens needed to put pressure on the BMC to get the Versova beach cleaned efficiently.

Even as plastic constituted the maximum share of the trash collected, volunteers were surprised to find a huge quantity of cement bags, clothes and alcohol bottles as well.

Beach trash removed:

Friday: 4,000kgSaturday: 8,000kgSunday: 10,500kgTotal trash collected in three days: 22,500kgTotal trash collected by citizens at Versova beach in the last 26 weeks (every Sunday): 72,500kg