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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Amrit Dhillon

‘I’ve seen people stop their cars to pick up litter’: how one city cleaned up its streets

About six cleaners wearing orange hi-vis jackets with brooms and bags sweep urban street at night under lights
Indore in Madhya Pradesh won the prize for being the cleanest city in India for eight years in a row from 2017. Photograph: Pallava Bagla/Corbis/Getty Images

This is what happens usually in India: a politician wakes up and launches a cleanliness “drive” with fanfare. They ostentatiously start sweeping a street and speak solemnly about civic duty while the media take photos. The next day it’s over and things go back to how they were before.

But not in Indore in Madhya Pradesh. From 2017, when it won the prize for being the cleanest city in the country, it kept winning for eight straight years, until last year.

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