The shoreline at Mahim turned into a dumping ground on Friday as waves pushed back massive amounts of garbage onto the beach, leaving it buried under heaps of plastic waste. The stretch near Reti Bunder, where the Mithi river meets the Arabian Sea, was hit the hardest.
Every monsoon, garbage dumped into the Mithi river flows into the sea, only to be returned during high tide. “The same story is repeated every year,” said Malhar Kaalambe of Beach Please, a non-profit that has been cleaning Mahim beach since 2018. “The piles form in layers and it takes almost six months to clear them manually.”
Residents and volunteer groups say the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has failed to keep the area clean despite appointing contractors for the job. According to Anwar Khan, founder of the Dargah Street ALM, the contractors ignore the stretch where the river meets the sea. “Even contracts are fragmented one contractor handles cleaning, another handles transportation. They never coordinate, and we have to push them to act,” Khan said.
While garbage washes up on most Mumbai beaches during the rains, activists say Mahim condition is far worse. Volunteer groups like Beach Please and ALMs step in with weekend clean-ups, often attracting 50–100 people, especially during the Ganpati festival when waste accumulation is at its peak.
Despite years of complaints, Mahim beach continues to reflect the city deeper waste management crisis, where rivers are mistaken for drains, and the sea keeps returning what the city throws away.