A 20-year-old man from Madhya Pradesh has landed an unexpected opportunity after his efforts to clean a heavily polluted river caught attention online. Surendra Singh Choudhary, popularly known as Bittu Tabahi, has been removing plastic waste, algae and accumulated debris from the Ajnar River on his own, and his work has now drawn attention from Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup.
Slat, the Dutch innovator behind the Netherlands-based organisation that develops and scales solutions to tackle plastic pollution in oceans, responded directly to an X post about Singh's cleanup work. His message was brief but significant: "Come work for us."
Who is Bittu Tabahi?
Surendra Singh Choudhary, popularly known as Bittu Tabahi, hails from Biaora in Madhya Pradesh's Rajgarh district. He has shared several videos of his river-cleaning efforts on Instagram, where he can be seen removing plastic waste, algae and accumulated debris from the Ajnar River by himself.
Singh reportedly began his cleanup mission in January this year and continued working on the river until he had transformed sections of it and made them trash-free.
According to digital content creator KR Talks, Singh has spent around Rs 30,000 on the cleanup project so far.
How did Bittu Tabahi clean the river?
Singh's efforts involved manually removing waste, algae and debris that had accumulated in the Ajnar River. His solo cleanup work was documented through videos and eventually drew wider attention online.
One X user highlighted his efforts by posting about how the 20-year-old had been cleaning the heavily polluted river himself for months. The post also featured pictures showing the river before and after the cleanup.
Who is Boyan Slat?
Boyan Slat is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, a Netherlands-based organisation that works on developing and scaling solutions to tackle plastic pollution in oceans.
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."
The job offer that surprised everyone
Slat reacted directly to the X post about Singh's work with a simple message: "Come work for us."
The offer quickly attracted attention from other users, who expressed excitement at the possibility of Singh getting an opportunity to work with the organisation.
"That could be a life-changing opportunity for him. I really hope this offer is genuine, because he absolutely deserves the chance," one person wrote.
Another commented, "What an incredible opportunity. He must be unbelievably lucky to get an offer like this."
A third user noted, "He's exactly the kind of person I would have wanted to make an offer to."
Someone else simply wrote, "That's your guy."
Anand Mahindra had praised him earlier
Singh's river-cleaning efforts had already received attention in India before Slat's response. In March, industrialist Anand Mahindra praised his work on social media after Singh faced criticism from some quarters over claims that he was cleaning parts of the river mainly to gain social media views.
"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," Mahindra wrote.
What does The Ocean Cleanup do?
The Ocean Cleanup is a Netherlands-based organisation focused on developing and scaling solutions to remove plastic pollution from oceans.
The organisation says its long-term aim is to put itself out of business by removing 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
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