When Chinu Kwatra (then 28) walked along the shore of Dadar Beach on 3 September 2017, he found broken Ganpati idol pieces lying among plastic wrappers, bags and food packaging that had washed up along the coast. The celebration had ended. The waste had stayed behind.
Looking at the mess in front of him, Chinu began thinking about what happened after the crowds went home. If people could come together to celebrate, could they also come together to clean up?
That morning, he decided to find out. Nine years later, he is still showing up.
From a college nature club to a beach movement
Chinu’s relationship with environmental work had begun much earlier. In 2008, while studying at Mulund College of Commerce, he started a nature club that brought students together for cleanups and awareness drives.
Over the years, community service became a larger part of his life. He worked with children, taught dance and, in 2017, founded the Khushiyaan Foundation to work on community welfare.
For Chinu Kwatra, one post-Ganpati cleanup in 2017 became the beginning of a nine-year commitment to Mumbai’s beaches. Photograph: (The Better India)
By the time he found himself on Dadar beach that September morning, Chinu already knew what it meant to bring people together. What he did not know yet was whether they would keep coming back.
Around 12 people joined that first cleanup. Soon after, a professor from Velankar College told Chinu that if the effort was to make a real difference, it could not end with one morning on the beach.
So he organised another cleanup.
This time, he put up posters hoping more people would join. Only a handful turned up at first. But once Chinu and his teammates began cleaning, students from nearby colleges noticed them and started joining in.
That day showed him that people did not always need a personal invitation. Sometimes, seeing someone else begin was enough to make them want to help.
That is also what The Better India’s #CivicSenseRevolution is about: making it easier for people to stop watching from the sidelines and take part.
If you’re in Mumbai on 26 September, you have that chance. Come to Dadar Beach at 8 am, spend a couple of hours alongside Chinu and other volunteers, and be one of the people who choose to stop walking past the problem and start helping clean it up.
Beach waste that once headed to dumping yards is now being processed into recycled plastic sheets, granules and benches. Photograph: (Instagram/@chinukwatraofficial)
And that is, in many ways, how those early cleanups slowly grew into Beach Warriors, the volunteer-led movement Chinu would go on to build across Mumbai’s beaches. People saw the team at work, joined in, and some began coming back week after week. Before long, the effort had spread beyond Dadar.
Nine years, four beaches, and a change no one predicted
What began with 12 people at Dadar has since grown into more than 2,000 cleanups across over 450 weeks.
Today, Beach Warriors works across four Mumbai beaches: Dadar behind Kirti College, Prabhadevi, Juhu Koliwada and Juhu Silver Beach. Chinu says it is the first initiative in India to conduct cleanups across four beaches every Saturday.
Over the years, the campaign estimates that it has sensitised more than one million people about waste management, while volunteers estimate that more than 4,000 tonnes of waste have been kept out of the ocean.
But a Saturday cleanup does not always look the same.
Sometimes, around 20 people turn up. When colleges or corporate teams join, the number can climb to 800. For Chinu, the number matters less than the fact that people continue to come.
Some of those who first arrive as volunteers end up staying with the movement for years. Anish is one of them. A trustee of Khushiyaan Foundation who now handles the Beach Warriors project full-time, he began volunteering during his college days in and later became associated with Chinu’s work through a Beachathon marathon in 2016-17.
What started with just 12 volunteers at Dadar Beach gradually grew into Beach Warriors, a movement spanning four beaches across Mumbai.
“The whole beach was piled up with the plastic waste,” he recalls of those early cleanups, where volunteers also encountered dead fish and turtles.
What stayed with him was how different the problem felt once people actually stepped onto the beach. “Once people are on the ground, they get a reality check of how much waste ends up on the beach,” he says.
That first-hand experience kept drawing him back. When Khushiyaan Foundation was formally registered in 2019, Anish became a trustee. Today, he leads Beach Warriors and watches new volunteers arrive at the beach for the first time, much like he once did.
That is also what the 26 September cleanup offers: a chance to see the problem up close, rather than from a distance. If you’re in Mumbai, you can come alone, with friends, with your college or with your team at work and spend the morning working alongside Beach Warriors at Dadar Beach.
And as volunteers like Anish kept returning, Chinu began noticing another change.
When the team first began cleaning beaches, he says people would call them kachrewala (waste picker). Today, they are more likely to call them safaiwala (sanitation worker).
Even choosing this work as a career once invited scepticism. Chinu was told that environmental service was something people could take up after retirement, that it was not a viable profession and that it could even affect his marriage prospects.
He continued anyway.
Beach waste that once headed to dumping yards is now being processed into recycled plastic sheets, granules, dustbins and benches. Photograph: (Enhanced using AI)
“The change is slow but it is monumental and we witness it every Saturday during the cleanups,” he says.
Turning beach plastic into school benches
Around 2020, Chinu began paying closer attention to what happened to the waste after it was collected from the beach.
Much of it was being sent to dumping yards. Recyclers were reluctant to accept the dirty, mixed plastic coming from beaches because it needed to be cleaned before it could be processed.
A trip to Bali gave Chinu an idea.
He began experimenting with washing beach plastic at a senior citizens’ ashram in Thane. Once cleaned and dried, he found that the material was “as good as new”.
That experiment eventually led to a Material Recovery Facility, where the plastic collected from beaches is washed, dried, sorted and baled.
Much of the waste consists of polythene packets, chips wrappers and multilayer food packaging rather than bottles. Once processed, it can be converted into granules and sheets that can be used as an alternative to plywood.
A single school bench can use around 25 kg of recycled beach plastic, giving discarded packaging a second life. Photograph: (Instagram/@chinukwatraofficial)
Some of that processed plastic eventually takes a very different form: school and garden benches.
A school bench requires around 25 kg of recycled plastic, while a garden bench requires about 30 kg. Last year, 300 school benches were sponsored through the initiative. In 2026, LIC and Backstage joined the effort, with a target of reaching 2,000 students.
So when you pick up a plastic wrapper or packet from Dadar Beach on 26 September, it might have a life beyond the cleanup. You are also helping with the first step in a much longer process: getting waste off the shore so it can be sorted, handled properly and, where possible, given another use.
A few hours of your Saturday morning can become one small part of that cycle.
“Now is the time for India to go from Swachh Bharat to Circular Bharat so we not only treat waste, but create jobs with it, eliminate dumpyards and become a plastic-free nation,” says Chinu.
For him, the next step is moving from a clean India towards a circular one.
Be part of the change on 26 September
Nine years after that first cleanup, Chinu and his team are still returning to Mumbai’s beaches week after week. And this time, The Better India is joining them.
Nine years on, Chinu’s Saturday cleanups continue to turn a simple act of picking up waste into a community habit.
As part of our #CivicSenseRevolution campaign, we’re bringing readers together with Beach Warriors at Dadar Beach on Saturday, 26 September, at 8 am.
You can come on your own, bring a friend, get your college group together or come with people from work. Gloves and cleanup equipment will be provided. All you need to give is a few hours of your morning.
Maybe you’ve passed a littered beach and felt frustrated. Maybe you’ve wanted to volunteer somewhere but never quite known how to begin. Or maybe, after reading Chinu and Anish’s story, you simply want to see for yourself what happens when people stop walking past the problem and start picking it up.
If you’re in Mumbai that morning, come spend those few hours with us at Dadar Beach.
Date: 26 September 2026
Time: 8 am
Location: Dadar Beach, Mumbai
A cleaner beach does not begin with a huge movement. Sometimes, it begins with someone deciding to stay back and help. On 26 September, that someone could be you.
About the campaign
This story is part of The Better India’s #CivicSenseRevolution, a year-long nationwide campaign celebrating citizens who take responsibility for the places and communities we all share. From cleaner streets and safer roads to restored lakes and public spaces, we’re looking for everyday Indians turning civic sense into action. Know someone doing work like this? Nominate your Civic Sense Herohere.
