New York Bay Cleanup Focuses on Hindu Ritual Items

Hindu-Americans pick up litter at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

April 28, 2011

The cleanup volunteers accumulate a pile of prayer flags, saris and other trash left over from sacred Hindu ceremonies.

The sound of gentle waves and the call of wild shorebirds are normally all you can hear on the shores of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, an oasis of nature just a few kilometers from the bustling urban heart of Queens, New York. But today, there is work to do.

More than 100 Hindu-Americans of various ages, along with U.S. Park Service rangers and other volunteers comb the shoreline picking up tattered prayer flags, bits of votive candles, statues and other Hindu ritual items that have been accumulating here over the past year.

"We were very, very disgusted and upset and embarrassed because some of the litter is from members of our religious community," says community leader Naidoo Veerapen, who has helped organize these annual cleanups for the past five years. "We thought this was no way to treat one of the beaches of the community in which we live."

Coconut shells might be tasty to the Hindu gods but they can also poison the fish in Jamaica Bay.

River water is an important element in the Hindu religion, which views India’s Ganges River as divine. "And we see the seas and rivers as a representation of Mother Ganga, which nourishes the earth, makes the soil fertile and brings us food. And so our offerings of food, et cetera, are released into the water. In India it’s done that way and we try to copy that ritual here."