Nearly 25,000 volunteers, led by campaigner Sarthi Gupta, who approached the state mangrove cell for a joint initiative, cleaned up eight mangrove sites — Bandra, Versova, Borivali, Dahisar, Sewri, Gorai, Bhandup and Airoli.

The Clean Mangrove Campaign, a three-year joint initiative by the residents and state mangrove cell, made it to the Limca Book of Records this week as one of the biggest government-citizen partnership projects. The campaign, which began in 2015, cleared 8,000 tonne of garbage (mostly plastic) covering 11.03 sqkm of mangroves (wetland areas).

Nearly 25,000 volunteers, led by campaigner Sarthi Gupta, who approached the state mangrove cell for a joint initiative, cleaned up eight mangrove sites — Bandra, Versova, Borivali, Dahisar, Sewri, Gorai, Bhandup and Airoli. The campaign, which involved 14 colleges across the city and concluded in 2018, will start again this month.

Gupta, who was also documenting the mangroves in 2014, said: “The best thing that emerged from this drive is the fact that people are more involved and sensitised about the mangrove ecology. During the clean-up drive, we found mostly plastic and household items in the garbage.”