We all wish for a clean and healthy environment but few actually come forward to actually work towards it. What we need now is more citizens coming together to volunteer in order to protect our environment as well as ourselves. This seven-year old named Jannat has been cleaning the famous Dal lake at Srinagar for past two years. Her efforts were first recorded two years ago: https://tinyurl.com/ybrrgy2c   Now Jannat has a chapter reserved by her name in school textbooks in Hyderabad: https://tinyurl.com/y75hxbdb Regular volunteering/ shramdaan at our individual level is the key to solve environment-related problems. We at We Mean To Clean are doing our bit by volunteering for native tree plantation drives, cleanups and waste management awareness campaigns. Let's do what we can!

There has been a flurry of news reports recently on the mounting garbage crisis in Delhi. As if the three landfill sites at Bhalswa, Okhla and Ghazipur weren't enough, the city is now staring at a new growing pile of waste. And this waste is more lethal than the previous ones. The hazardous biomedical waste. According to news reports by outlets such as The Times of India , Hindustan Times , India Today , NDTV etc. personal protective equipment (PPE) like body suits, face masks, hand gloves and shoe covers are being dumped at landfills and at crematoriums in the city. This can have serious repercussions. People who live in the vicinity of such areas are at a high risk of being infected. And some sanitation workers have already been tested covid19-positive and some have lost their lives. As we wade through the covid19 pandemic we should resolve to take this pandemic as an opportunity. We should be far more considerate towards the lives of those who stay deal with our waste directly ...

WE ARE SUPER-EXCITED! We have initiated a set-up of our own nursery. A nursery of native tree saplings like peepal, neem, amaltas etc. We are using empty packets/ pouches of milk, detergent powder, snacks, other beverages etc. to prepare our saplings. This is addressing two areas: With the use of such waste packets. we are following the second principle of waste management: REUSE. Today's REUSE helped us save about 100 fresh packs from being utilized for this purpose. Also, raising our own saplings will help us reduce our costs in terms of time, energy and money on procuring such saplings. Additionally, we can raise even those saplings that are usually not available in government nurseries. We request your support as well. You can DM us on Facebook , Instagram or Twitter and we'll share the address where you can courier your empty packets. View this post on Instagram We're live from a secret location. A place where we're preparing a nursery. A nurs...

Yes, we are gradually resuming our activities being extra-cautious with the prevailing pandemic situation. Our cleanup drives are on hold indefinitely, waste management workshops will be conducted digitally and our tree plantation activity will kick off with very few people on the ground. We visited our Sainik Vihar site today to assess how are our amaltas saplings performing. We were quite amazed to see that these hardy trees have bravely fought the recent adverse conditions. They are all standing tall giving us a lot of inspiration and hope. Thanks to volunteers who watered them regularly pre-covid... Take a look!

Please note that we have canceled all our scheduled meetups and have suspended all activities until we see an improvement in the situation. We'll be following government advisory. We request you as well to follow the government advisory strictly. Please stay at home, stay safe. Better safe than sorry! We suggest you utilize this time to educate yourself online on waste management concepts - reduce, reuse, recycle, home composting - how to do it and bust your myths and concerns around it, and learn about trees native to Delhi and India!

LET'S DO WHAT WE CAN! Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple. – Martin O’Malley Did you know we’re losing one football field of forest lost every single second around the clock? We may not be able to do much about this massive figure directly but what we can surely do as an individual is - planting and maintaining tree saplings wherever we can. Public parks, vacated land, road dividers - there’s ample space in Delhi itself to fill the gaps and preserve the city whose lungs are falling apart. Working towards a breathable city won’t happen in one day but as they say every tiny step counts, every effort counts. It surely is a win-win situation if government bodies and citizens are on the same page. It was a fruitful weekend as DDA collaborated with us for a native tree plantation drive in Janakpuri A Block district park. With the support of around 15 volunteers and a small call-out to the park visitors, we planted about 40 pilkhan tr...

PED TO LAGAYA… #PaaniDiyaKya ? No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship. - James Comer While we teach children about treating people the right way, we tend to forget inculcating the importance of nature in their lives as they grow. Today most of the kids are cocooned from the outside world. It is crucial to expose them to nature… to help them build a bond with it. We just have to make the child fall in love with nature and we would never have to teach them about rising pollution or mercury levels because they would then always tend to take the right steps. Meet our most adorable volunteer who often visits our Hauz Khas plantation site with his father to meet his green friends and help them grow. Carrying the watering cans to carefully watering the little plants, he enjoys it all because he has been taught that 'trees are our best friends'. Parenting done right. Kudos! Need many more such parents! Join us. Visit http://wmtc....

Here's a glimpse into our cleanup drive at Bhalswa lake... Kudos to these students from Ramjas College who are running this initiative called Project Neer with Enactus.

VOLUNTEER... IT HELPS! Whatever your cause, whatever your motivation, I hope you'll agree with me that volunteer service is an extraordinary gift. - Neil Bush A pleasant February morning welcomed us at Sangam Vihar DDA park. Perfect for a cleanup drive! Our small yet significant army wore their reusable gloves and exuded their passion towards cleaning the environment around our saplings clean. Of course, it also helps in keeping the place neat and tidy anyway! The beauty of this team is they do not need directions. Everything falls into place by itself. Some went forward clearing up the garbage and others began clearing up weeds surrounding our saplings. And some fed the saplings with compost. The coordination was like a perfect symphony orchestra. At the end of the drive, we collected about 60 kg of trash and were able to clear enough weed that our saplings were clearly noticeable, with a dedicated path now visible towards them for easy a...

PED TO LAGAYA... #PaaniDiyaKya ? Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe The problem of air pollution is on the rise every year and the air we inhale is only going to get more toxic if we don't change our ways. We have become prey to our comfortable lifestyles that we find it difficult to escape. What we don't know is the power of taking small steps starting from home to volunteering on community level. Our volunteers are conscious about the consequences of every action of theirs - segregating waste at home to planting and nurturing native trees regularly! This weekend, our volunteers gathered at the three locations we have planted native trees - namely, Hauz Khas, Sainik Vihar and Sangam Vihar. With the onset of relatively sunny days, many of these littlebies were waiting for us eagerly to quench their thirst. With the expected sunny days ahead, our plants will need us more often.  Help us in watering the...

PED TO LAGAYA... #PaaniDiyaKya ? Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. -William James The bad news is that air pollution still persists and the good news is that it can be dealt with by taking tiny steps by each one of us. All we just need is to accept the situation and start acting on it instead of passing the ball in other's court. Our volunteers very well understand the severity of problem we all have landed ourselves into and are doing their bit to dilute the polluted air that we're breathing at present. We gathered at Sangam Vihar to water and nurture our saplings that we planted here. The volunteers also did weeding around our these saplings. It's their weekly efforts that the saplings are doing fine. But, we need more people! Join us and help these saplings grow. Visit http://wmtc.org.in

Our volunteer Gaurav Garg representing us at a four-day workshop by the U.S. Forest Service . USFS has setup a network of NGOs and volunteer groups across Delhi NCR. We are one of the fortunate ones to be included in the program. The program endeavours to facilitate sharing of best practices pertaining to native tree plantation and waste management. A great opportunity for us to learn from the likes of Peepal Baba of Give Me Trees Trust, who is anyway a mentor to us. Other entities include I Am Gurgaon, Sow Good Farms, Mission 100 Crore Trees, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Swechha.

HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY! Let's fulfill our constitutional duty towards our environment. It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures. - Article 48A and Article 51A(g) of Indian Constitution Our constitution tells us, the citizens of India to protect and improve the environment. How many of us are doing that? Our volunteers, for sure, are. Our watering teams gathered at Sainik Vihar and Sangam Vihar this weekend. It was good to be back with our saplings after two weeks of watering break, all thanks to the rain gods for showering their blessings on the little ones. The volunteers watered the plants and also removed weed surrounding the saplings. Our Sangam Vihar team also cleared some plastic waste from the vicinity of the plants and helped them get a cleaner environment to flourish. This Republic Day, let’s take a deep...

In our continuing attempts at Sarita Vihar towards waste management, we have now complete feedback model from both both sides - waste collectors as well as residents. Thanks to our last weekend's workshop with the waste collectors' contractor of the area on the role of effective waste collection for proper waste management system. We're super excited to share that starting next month, only segregated waste shall be collected from the residents, which would be further directed to a nearby biogas plant setup recently. It'd thus reduce the burden on our landfills. Want to start waste segregation at your society? Don't worry! We're there to help. Visit http://wmtc.org.in

LET'S PREP UP FOR FUTURE No. of volunteers: 3 Households covered: 57 The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it. – Robert Swan What do you see when you gaze out your window of future? A healthy and wealthy you enjoying the beautiful world with your family. Now roll-back in the present and look around you. Littered roads, heaps of garbage, polluted air! That's what we're surrounded with at present. The sooner that we start acting on it without waiting for others, the sooner we will make our world, our home a brighter place.  The residents of Sarita Vihar have started acting on it by segregating their household waste. Thanks to our volunteers that we have covered most of the households in our weekly awareness campaigns. It was good to see three dustbins in many homes when our volunteers went for awareness this weekend. We hope that this chain reaction of positive change keeps accelerating. Want to start waste...