Highlights
- Pradeep Sangwan, a resident of Haryana has taken upon himself the uphill task of cleaning up the mess left behind by tourists on the trekking routes
- Between October and February, the team gets into a huddle where the next year’s trek routes and dates are chalked out
- Healing Himalayas cleanup drives are not limited to just picking up the garbage from the mountains. They also make sure that it is segregated and recycled.
Tourism can be a great blessing – it brings better infrastructure and also becomes the source of income for the residents of that particular area.
It also can become a curse for the locals if the tourists are not responsible. One of the biggest problems tourist footfall brings is waste management.
It is not uncommon for visitors to leave behind plastic and other non-biodegradable waste, slowly turning the once pristine tourist spots into garbage dumps.
Sadly in India, historic monuments to rivers, beaches and even mountains are not immune to this ever-growing crisis.
The delicate ecosystem of the Himalayas too has been affected by an increase in plastic pollution caused by tourists.
Picking up waste left behind by tourists
Pradeep Sangwan, a resident of Haryana has taken upon himself the uphill task of cleaning up the mess left behind by tourists on the trekking routes of the Himalayas.
“Everyone is aware of the pollution crisis in cities like Delhi and other metros. But what most people don’t know is that the Himalayas are also equally polluted,”
How it started
Since 2016, Sangwan and volunteers from his NGO, Healing Himalayas have been trekking multiple times into the Himalayas throughout the year to collect the plastic and other waste left behind by tourists and pilgrims.
Trekking from February to October
“Every year we start in mid-February and it goes on till the end of October. We have volunteers from all across the globe taking part in these trekking for a cause. We start from the lower altitude areas and then go further in the following months,” Sangwan said.
Between October and February, the team gets into a huddle where the next year’s trek routes and dates are chalked out and volunteers are informed so that they can make their plans in advance.
According to him, the volunteers of Healing Himalayas collect around 1.5 tonnes of non-biodegradable waste on a daily basis in all five facilities, which otherwise would have been landfilled or burned in the open air. This includes mostly PET bottles and multi-layer packaging materials.
Collect and recycle
Healing Himalayas cleanup drives are not limited to just picking up the garbage from the mountains. They also make sure that it is segregated and recycled.
“When we started collecting the waste we had no mechanism to dispose or process it. We would hand the waste over to the civic authorities and that would eventually end up in landfills. So, a couple of years ago we started setting up small material recovery facilities at remote locations,” he said.
The first such storage and processing facility was set up in 2020 in Rakcham near Chitkul of Kullu district. Today there are four more facilities in Mansari (Kullu), Pooh (Kinnaur), Tabo (Spiti) and Narkanda (Shimla).
Why local involvement is important
Sangwan and his team also make sure that the local stakeholders are on the same page when it comes to disposing of waste.
“Engaging the local community and making them responsible is crucial. We always train some locals on the SOPs for waste collection, segregation and recycling. Once we are confident that our local volunteers can carry forward the operations, we hand it over to them,” he said.
This, according to Sangwan is his way of giving back to the community which taught him a lot about life and sustainability.
What sheperds can teach tourists
Sangwan was introduced to the mountains while he was a student at Chandigarh’s DAV College in 2007-08.
After moving to the state in 2009, he undertook extensive travelling and during that he met a group of people from the shepherd community in Lahaul. He was impressed how, even in a very remote area, they cared so much for their environment.
“One of the things that impressed me the most about them is that their carbon footprint was nearly zero. This is a sharp contrast from those coming for trekking in the Himalayas and leave a trail of waste behind. I wanted to do something to bridge the gap and transfer the education that I got from the shepherds,” he said.
That is how he came up with the idea of trekking for a purpose and made a call-out on social media for volunteers for a clean-up drive. Today, Healing Himalayas has more than 3,000 volunteers from across India, who take part in clean-up drives.
“Ideally we want more local volunteers as it reduces the carbon footprint. But if someone from outside does the clean-up drive, it has a positive impact also. So we try to keep it mixed. Most of our treks are on weekends, and volunteers reach by Friday, and trek up on Saturday and come down the next day,” he said.
Responsible tourism
According to Sangwan, there is a disconnect between tourists and nature, which is resulting in pollution.
“Tourists feel that since they are paying some money, the waste is not their responsibility. Most tourists, who come to the mountains are from the cities and are disconnected from nature. Even in the mountains they behave like in the cities and fail to adapt and live modestly,” he said.