Humble but regular efforts over a long term can have massive impact. We won't whinge about covid19-induced restrictions. We'll keep on doing whatever we can. Two of our volunteers added a few more native tree saplings to their nursery. This particular location is home to jamun, mango and neem. We are reusing milk packets, seeds from jamun and mango that we eat and collect nimolis from parks. You too can do this... at your own pace. If a lot of us are able to do it, we would have a great bank of native tree saplings... All with zero waste! How to set up a zero waste nursery? - You don't have to buy planters. Just REUSE your milk and other plastic packets - prevent them from ending up in the landfills - Collect the seeds of mango, jamun and other fruits/ vegetables at home and sow them in the packets - Going for a morning walk? Seek out for neem seeds and peepal saplings and plant them - You can also make compost/ fertilizer from your kitchen waste and use them for your sapli...

One of our volunteers conducted a small cleanup drive in his neighbourhood park. What he did: - Identified a spot that was a victim of garbage dumping/ littering - Wore a pair of reusable gloves - Collected the litter in single-use plastic bag available at home - Dumped the garbage in a nearby dustbin - Washed his gloves thoroughly with soap Satisfaction? 100% guaranteed! You too can conduct similar cleanups and share your pics or videos with us. While Covid19 attempts to keep us in boundaries, let's do whatever is possible within these confines. And lastly, a request to everyone... Please do not litter! The sanitation staff is anyway in shortage due to the pandemic. So, the more we litter, the bigger problem we'll create for ourselves. Let's use this pandemic as a lesson! Please!

According to a study by researchers at the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India’s iconic Vembanad lake - a wetland ecosystem recognised internationally by the Ramsar Convention - has been drowning in microplastics. Amidst this perpetual problem, a 69-year-old has been clearing discarded plastic bottles off the lake every single day for the last five years. Rowing a boat to collect plastic bottles dumped in Vembanad lake, sacking them up and selling to the plastic recycling company to manage a meagre income of Rs. 12 per day - this is how a typical day in NS Rajappan’s life looks like. All of that when he doesn’t own a boat! Yes, he hires one daily. Rajappan was affected by polio at a very young age and has been paralysed since then. He could not move his legs but managed to row a boat to make a living. Even though his source of income has been hit due to the Covid19 pandemic, he is happy to see the lake clean in years. We love and respect this volunteering spirit towards ...

The Covid19 pandemic has confined us all to our homes limiting us from organising large scale plantation drives. But our environmental duty must continue! So, what can we do? Our volunteers have a solution. One of our volunteers has been raising mango, jamun, pilkhan, bakain and peepal saplings at her terrace nursery this entire lockdown. All of them with whatever's available at home - mango and jamun seeds, milk and other food packets, and homemade compost. Yes! That's a zero budget nursery. And zero waste too! How to set up a zero waste nursery? - You don't have to buy planters. Just REUSE your milk and other plastic packets - prevent them from ending up in the landfills - Collect the seeds of mango, jamun and other fruits/ vegetables at home and sow them in the packets - Going for a morning walk? Seek out for neem seeds and peepal saplings and plant them - You can also make compost/ fertilizer from your kitchen waste and use them for your saplings; your plants will love ...

What to do when a pandemic prohibits you from organizing large scale events? DECENTRALIZE! And do whatever is possible. Two of our volunteers woke up to a rainy morning, thankfully, to setup a small nursery in their neighbourhood park. Fortunately, they were able to secure permission for the same from their residents welfare association. What kind of saplings are they preparing? Well, they had been saving the seeds of jamun and mango that they were relishing after lunch and dinner. And they were also saving their milk packets. So, REUSING their milk packets they have sowed seeds of jamun and mango. They also collected some neem seeds that nature had showered generously in the park. It was raining heavily so they couldn't continue much. However, they do seem determined to make this a regular habit. Little steps can take us a long way! We hope to have a fairly large number of saplings by the time we reach next year's monsoon. And hopefully, the world around us would be in a bette...

"I consider myself a painter. Other artists use canvas, brush and colour to paint, but I used a face of hills as my canvas and planted trees, flowers to paint. It has taken a lifetime to draw this -- it is living art." These are the words of Moirangthem Loiya who has been replanting forest on a 300 acre land in Manipur, which he has named Punshilok - ‘Spring of Life’. Check out this incredible transformation: Planting and nurturing native trees is the easiest and most feasible solution we currently have to combat environment-related issues. We at We Mean To Clean are also planting and nurturing native tree saplings across Delhi/NCR. Thanks to Loiya for giving a tremendous boost to our spirits. We request you all to take up such endeavours. Don’t worry about the scale. Great results always have humble beginnings, just start! We all must start! Let's plant and nurture more and more native trees!

Listen covid19, you can cripple a lot of systems but you can't debilitate our spirits. We'll still go ahead with all what we can... With a cap on the number of volunteers, maybe with less ambitious but realistic targets and still with the same enthusiasm towards taking care of our saplings by watering them regularly. Our volunteers planted a peepal sapling early morning today. While this is the first image of this year's plantation, it's certainly not the first tree from our group. Our volunteers have been planting in individual capacities till now. You too can plant native trees in your vicinity. Plant only as much as you're able to take care of them regularly.

Some people have asked us on social media what to do with excess compost or even compost leachate. If you have any trees nearby, you can nourish them with this organic fertilizer. Yeah, you can adopt a young tree(s). Or simply nourish the grown ups with compost leachate to help them bear better fruits! One of our volunteers expressed his gratitude to the jamun trees in his neighbourhood for their fruit by giving them leachate from his kitchen waste compost.

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....