A river choked with thousands of disposable plates, plastic bags, and delivery packaging. That’s what volunteers found — and cleaned up — in Itanagar this Saturday.
On August 8, 2026, a massive clean-up drive along the Yagamso River turned into something far more powerful than just a waste-collection exercise. It became a mirror held up to the city. Around 5,220 kilograms of garbage were hauled out of the river in a single day — a number that’s striking, troubling, and honestly not very surprising to anyone who has seen the state of Itanagar’s water bodies in recent years.
Who Showed Up and Made It Happen
The drive was jointly organised by the Youth Mission for Clean River (YMCR) and the Abralow Memorial Multipurpose Society, with support from the Itanagar Smart City Development Corporation Limited. That’s a combination of youth energy, community organisation, and institutional backing — and it showed in the scale of what was achieved. Volunteers rolled up their sleeves, waded in, and got to work. No fanfare. Just effort.
What Was Actually in That River
The breakdown of the waste is where things get uncomfortable. Disposable plates and glasses made up the largest share — nearly 9,000 pieces were pulled out. Around 8,500 pieces of cement bags, rice sacks, and online delivery packaging were also recovered, while plastic waste accounted for roughly 8,000 more pieces. Think about that for a second. Online delivery bags. In a river. That tells you exactly how deeply our throwaway habits have seeped into everyday life, even here in the hills of Arunachal.
What the Leaders Said — And What They’re Asking For
Ward No. 10 corporator Yukar Yaro praised the organisations and volunteers involved and urged residents to adopt responsible waste-disposal practices, appealing to people to stop dumping garbage into rivers and other natural water bodies. It’s a message that gets repeated often, maybe too often — but this time, 5,220 kilograms of real garbage gives it weight. YMCR chairman SD Loda echoed the call, urging citizens to show greater concern for local rivers and to spread environmental awareness within their own communities. Awareness, he’s right, has to come from within — from neighbours, from families, from people who actually live alongside these rivers.
A Clean-Up Is Not a Solution — It’s a Beginning
What happened at Yagamso on Saturday deserves recognition. But let’s be clear: cleaning a river once doesn’t save it. What saved it a little, this weekend, was a group of people who chose not to look away. The harder question — who put those 9,000 disposable plates in there in the first place — still needs an honest answer from all of us. Rivers don’t fill with trash by themselves. And they won’t stay clean unless we stop treating them like drains.
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