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“This littering is done by us,” Shah says of his fellow Indian citizens. “I should pick it up.”

One environmental activist calls India’s garbage problem a “ticking time bomb” that will ultimately bury the nation’s cities and towns unless its 1.3 billion people stop littering at will. The country is “drowning in trash,” says Chitra Mukherjee of the New Delhi-based Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group.

Each day, every Indian generates about 200 to 600 grams (7 ounces to 1.3 pounds) of garbage, the government estimates. The vast majority of that ends up tossed into the country’s forests, parks, streets and sidewalks, rivers or surrounding oceans.

“The citizen has to realize that ‘this is my waste, nobody is going to take care of it but me,”‘ says Mukherjee.

In 2014, the government tried to raise awareness with a campaign called “Swacch Bharath Abhiyan,” or “Clean India Mission.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi even hammed it up for media photographers by posing with a broom.

But three years later, little has changed. People still carry their household trash in plastic bags to the edge of the water and toss it out to sea, watching as it bobs away.

The slow progress means Shah and others continue leading small citizens’ movements to help. But not every effort has been successful.

A group called New Delhi Rising says it’s been unable to find enough volunteers to handle the 15,500 tons of waste generated every day in the Indian capital.

New Delhi’s three landfills are already overflowing, says the group’s founder, Nakul, who like many in India goes by only one name.

Even the swankiest neighbourhoods often have garbage tucked into the corners between buildings or beneath park benches.

Some Delhi students volunteer regularly to help pick it up, but most of New Delhi Rising’s engagement has come from social media ‘likes’ and follows. Nakul hopes more residents will come out to help.

“It only takes two hours, it doesn’t take money,” he said.

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Sharma reported from New Delhi.