Images of a Mumbai beach covered in waste look like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, but they are real. The city has faced enormous difficulties for years in preventing tons of waste from ending up on its shores.
The problem becomes even more visible during the monsoon: rains carry garbage from streets, canals and rivers into the ocean, and the tides later return it to the sand.
In 2026, authorities had to remove 2,499 tons of waste from the beaches in just 11 days. In another operation carried out the previous year, another 952 tons were removed in only nine days.
Mumbai generates around 6,500 tons of solid waste every day, and the scale of the problem requires constant operations to prevent garbage from accumulating again.
The contrast is stark: one of India’s most modern and economically important cities has beaches that, after the rains, can end up completely covered in garbage.