Every Saturday night for the past year, 10-year-old Paridhi Mhatre and her six-year-old brother Vivansh, have been hitting the bed earlier than usual. When the clock strikes 7.30 am next morning, they know they need to gear up for a mammoth task. Out of the nearly 100 kg of waste pulled out of mangroves behind Nerul’s TS Chanakya Wetlands every Sunday, their tiny hands have been playing their big parts consistently.

Vivansh and Paridhi at a cleanup drive in Nerul. PIC COURTESY/AMOL MHATRE

“I watched a video my father posted online after a cleanup. It sparked so many questions in my mind,” Paridhi tells us. Amol Mhatre, the siblings’ father, and a supervisor with the NMMC’s Solid Waste Management department is a regular with Environment Life Foundation, a citizen’s collective run by environmentalist Dharmesh Barai. “Paridhi asked me if she could join me the next day. I was surprised,” Amol recalls. The green thumb seems to run in the family. Soon after Paridhi, Vivansh followed suit, even freeing a crab on his first visit.