9-year-old Thaaragai Aarathana gathers plastic trash with her diving instructor father off the coast of Chennai, India. The duo has sparked a movement against marine pollution. Their regular underwater cleanups benefit dugongs and other aquatic life.
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00:00Off the coast of Chennai, scuba diver Aravind and his nine-year-old daughter are preparing
00:05for a dive. She has a remarkable and noble pastime.
00:09My name is Taragai Aradhana. I'm nine years old and I'm in the fourth grade at school.
00:17I clean up trash from the ocean and the shore. I protect the oceans and the marine life in
00:22them. I've collected a thousand kilograms of plastic.
00:29When Aradhana went on her first dive with her father, she was surprised by what she
00:33saw. There are so many beautiful fish there and
00:40basically an equal amount of plastic. That made me realise I needed to do something to
00:46help. The beaches popular among tourists are full
00:50of plastic garbage, mainly single-use items. You find more bottle caps than bottles on
00:57the beach. People dispose of bottles, forgetting about the caps. There are plastic spoons,
01:03bags, everything. To stop pollution, we need to stop production.
01:09Both plants and sea creatures face severe threats from plastic waste.
01:17When we were diving, we spotted a dead dugong, also known as a sea cow, trapped in a net.
01:23Dugong populations are rapidly declining. It's not just dugongs. All marine life is
01:28dying because of nets and plastic. Seagrass meadows, where dugongs graze, are
01:38also important habitats for many marine species. These areas provide breeding and feeding grounds
01:45for various fish and invertebrates, so they're essential for marine biodiversity.
01:51Aradhana and her father organise weekly plastic clean-up drives. Local volunteers have been
01:58joining the mission, indicating a growing dedication to environmental protection.
02:09The young members of the community are especially eager for change.
02:15Our biggest hope lies with the children. These children are going home and asking their parents,
02:21if the water gets polluted, won't the fish get sick? When children become aware like
02:28this, that's our greatest victory. Aradhana and the other volunteers know they'll
02:33never manage to remove it all, but they're certainly doing their bit. And as the awareness
02:38grows, so hopefully will the efforts to curb plastic waste.