Meet Bittu Tabahi: The 20-year-old from MP who cleaned a polluted river for months, now offered work by Dutch CEO Boyan Slat

Dutch CEO Boyan Slat has invited 20-year-old Surendra Singh Choudhary, popularly known as Bittu Tabahi, to work with his organisation, The Ocean Cleanup, after the young man spent months cleaning the heavily polluted Ajnar River in Madhya Pradesh.

“Come work for us,” Slat wrote in reply to a post on X about Bittu’s work.

The post said the 20-year-old had been cleaning the Ajnar River himself for months and included before-and-after pictures of the river. The response from Slat, the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, has now brought global attention to a clean-up effort that began locally in Biaora.

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Who is Bittu Tabahi?

A resident of Biaora in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district, Bittu began cleaning the Ajnar River in January this year. He has spent months removing plastic, algae and other waste from the river and its surroundings.

This was not part of an official campaign or a large environmental project. He took up the work on his own and paid for basic supplies himself.

Videos shared on his Instagram page show him removing waste from the river and nearby public spaces. He also shared before-and-after pictures showing a stretch of the Ajnar that was once covered in rubbish looking much cleaner after his efforts.

 

 

Watch the viral post here:

 

Anand Mahindra had earlier praised his work

Industrialist Anand Mahindra had backed his efforts in March.

Sharing a post about the clean-up, Mahindra wrote, “This young man from Biaora, M.P, was criticised for claiming to have cleaned parts of a river just in order to gain social media views. Well, we usually complain that social media rewards the trivial rather than the meaningful. So if a desire for ‘likes’ can become a force for good that’s fine with me. Bittu Tabahi from Biaora is my #MondayMotivation.”

Bittu continued the clean-up and kept sharing updates from the river on social media.

 

Read the viral post here:

How did Boyan Slat notice him?

The latest attention came after an X user posted about the Ajnar River clean-up and shared pictures showing its condition before and after the work.

Slat responded to the post with a simple invitation: “Come work for us.”

 

 

 

The reply quickly drew reactions online, with users calling it a major opportunity for the young environmentalist.

Who is Boyan Slat?

Slat is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur who founded The Ocean Cleanup, a Netherlands-based organisation working to remove plastic pollution from oceans and rivers.

According to the organisation’s official website, “Boyan Slat (27 July 1994) is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur, passionate about creating megaprojects to address planetary problems.”

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The Ocean Cleanup aims to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.

For Bittu, the invitation marks a new chapter in a project that began with him cleaning waste from a polluted river near his home, largely on his own.