Mumbai, India – 29 July, 2017
1. Pan shot of Versova beach, where a group of volunteers have been led by local lawyer Afroz Shah to clean up the waste
2. Volunteers picking up garbage from the sand and putting it into bins
3. Various of garbage on beach and in water
4. Various of Afroz Shah, lawyer who initiated clean up, picking up garbage along side volunteers
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Afroz Shah, Lawyer:
"All stakeholders must have to come forward, this includes the citizens, the government, the NGO's (Non Governmental Organizations), the environmentalists, you know…United Nations Environment, UN, everybody must come on the ground level. We have too many laws, too many policies, less enforcement, so what we are doing is enforcing the law actually."
6. Dog and crows sitting on a mound of garbage
7. Various of Ines Lemberger, German tourist visiting India, cleaning up
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Ines Lemberger, German tourist visiting India:
"Oh God…to me this was the most shocking place I've ever been to actually, I mean, really, it's horrible. Especially when you're from Germany (which is) such a very clean country, and then (it is) even worse to see how all this trash lands in the ocean and makes me really sad."
New Delhi, India – 22 July, 2017
9. Various of girls from The Indian School cleaning posters off a wall under a central New Delhi flyover
10. Various of other volunteers helping remove posters from underneath the flyover
11. Various of Nakul (uses one name), founder of clean up group New Delhi Rising painting concrete walls
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Nakul (uses one name), Founder of New Delhi Rising:
"It only takes two hours, doesn't take money, it only takes will power and I hope more and more citizens take inspiration from all the work different groups around India are doing, and just come out and take their own local community, and do something."
Mumbai, India – 29 July, 2017
13. Wide of truck carrying garbage on Versova beach
14. Wide of volunteers dumping garbage in one spot for collection
New Delhi, India – 16 August, 2017
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Chitra Mukherjee, Head of Programmes, Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group:
"A major problem, I would say, with waste management in India, is that people are not even aware of how big the problem is. I mean, unless you are actually working in this sector and you are actually involved in environment, you don't even know that, you know, we are actually sitting…this is just a... you're basically sitting on a time bomb."
New Delhi, India – 22 July, 2017
16. Various of New Delhi Rising volunteers underneath the flyover
New Delhi, India – 16 August, 2017
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Chitra Mukherjee, Head of Programmes, Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group:
"Whether it is larger places like Delhi and Bangalore, or Mumbai, or small places, it is…the key is getting citizens involved. The citizen has to realize that this is my waste, nobody is going to take care of it but me."
Mumbai, India – 29 July, 2017
18. Shah dumping garbage in a separate pile with the help of a volunteer
19. Mid shot of garbage pile at the beach
20. Shah giving instructions to volunteers
21. Women carrying bags of garbage on their heads
Welcome to Mumbai's Versova beach - a symbol of India's growing waste problem.
Government estimates suggest that each of India's 1.3 billion citizens generates roughly 0.2 to 0.6 kilograms (approximately 0.44 to 1.3 pounds) per day.
Waterways across the country are choked by the mounting rubbish - a collection of discarded plastic bags, bottles, clothes and wrappers.
But many people have had enough.
For the past two years, Mumbai based lawyer Afroz Shah has spent every weekend cleaning Versova beach, yet every time he does there's still plenty more to pick up.
He started off alone as a man who was simply fed up of seeing the oceans, a lovely natural phenomenon for Shah, filled with plastic.
His passion and drive has grown into a steady group of volunteers who dedicate two hours every Saturday and Sunday in the pursuit of a clean, plastic-free ocean.
"All stakeholders must have to come forward, this includes the citizens, the government, the NGO's (Non Governmental Organizations), the environmentalists, you know…United Nations Environment, UN, everybody must come on the ground level. We have too many laws, too many policies, less enforcement, so what we are doing is enforcing the law actually," Shah says.
Along with hundreds of volunteers, Shah has picked up over five million kilograms of trash, mostly plastic, from the beach.
Wearing hats, gloves, face masks, and smiles on their faces, the volunteers also include foreign tourists.
Ines Lemberger, a tourist from Germany, was shocked to see the state of the environment.
"Oh God…to me this was the most shocking place I've ever been to actually, I mean, really, it's horrible. Especially when you're from Germany (which is) such a very clean country, and then (it is) even worse to see how all this trash lands in the ocean and makes me really sad," she says.
Lemberger is, however, happy that the clean up mission has local support.
But New Delhi-based group New Delhi Rising finds it hard to pull in the same numbers.
Founder Nakul, who only uses one name, started the clean up group in 2014, just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) in October that year.
And while the conversation around cleanliness in the country has certainly increased, Nakul still finds it hard to get people out cleaning each weekend.
He has received help from students of The Indian School in New Delhi, who volunteer on a regular basis as part of the school's citizenship program.
Nakul says he believes people need to realize that the garbage situation is one that the government alone cannot fix.
"It only takes two hours, doesn't take money, it only takes will power and I hope more and more citizens take inspiration from all the work different groups around India are doing, and just come out and take their own local community, and do something," he says.
According to New Delhi based Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, Delhi alone produces 15,500 tons of trash every day.
"A major problem, I would say, with waste management in India, is that people are not even aware of how big the problem is," says Chitra Mukherjee, Head of Programmes at Chintan.
"I mean, unless you are actually working in this sector and you are actually involved in environment, you don't even know that…you're basically sitting on a time bomb," she adds.
Mukherjee also believes that people who are aware of the depth of the problem, and willing to engage with the issue, are the key.
"The citizen has to realize that this is my waste, nobody is going to take care of it but me," she says.
