December,3,2016:
His efforts cover the past year picked up a whopping 4,000 tons of garbage.
Mumbai-based lawyer Afroz Shah has been named as one of winners of the top environmental honour of the United Nations. Shah will be among those bestowed with the Champions of the Earth Award for leading clean-up of the Mumbai's Versova Beach.Shah would be receiving the award under 'Action and Inspiration' category for kick-starting, volunteer campaign to pick up, by hand, all the plastic bags, cement sacks, glass bottles, pieces of clothing, and shoes.
He covered entire 2.5-km stretch of Versova Beach, which was covered in garbage even rising many feet high at some places.
The movement grew by leaps and boundsduring the past year and picked up a whopping 4,000 tons of garbage along the Versova Beach.
Shah's outstanding leadership is drawing global attention to devastating impacts of the marine litter," stated United Nations Environment Project (UNEP) Chief Erik Solheim, who had joined Shah in the clean-up for a day in month of October.
United Nations Patron of the Oceans, Lewis Pugh, also congratulated Shah in his tweet. "So delighted that Mr. Afroz Shah has won the UN's Highest Award for his incredible efforts to clean the Mumbai's beaches!!".
Afroz Shah as part of announcement on UNEP website said that, "This award is in honour of hundreds of the volunteers who have joined me over the past year to clean up our beach and the ocean. I am an ocean lover and feel that we owe a duty to our ocean to make it free of the plastic."
Picture Source :
