Whose trash is it anyway? Six years of demanding extended producer responsibility in the Himalaya

In the Himalaya, a movement has been picking up slowly. Every year since 2018, in response to the call for The Himalayan Cleanup (THC), volunteers from across the mountain states have gathered not just to clean up hundreds of sites, but also to audit all the trash that they collect.

What is in the trash, what is their contribution to it and whose trash is it are the questions that the volunteers are trying to find answers to. 

The waste crisis in the Himalayan region has been fast growing and it impacts human as well as the planet’s well-being. Considering the ecological and biodiversity significance, as well as the fragility of these sacred spaces, urgent and contextual responses are needed.

There is now greater understanding of necessary actions, which are also enshrined in the Solid Waste Management and Plastic Waste Management Rules, but, the pace of implementation however remains woefully lethargic. Segregation of waste at source, collection and linkage still remains a challenge in most states; the age-old practice of collection and centralised dumping in landfills or rolling downhill reign supreme. 

Shifting responsibility 

Consumers and waste managers have taken the brunt of the blame when it comes to plastic pollution. Popular narratives for solutions have so far revolved around use of dustbins and landfilling. Production, materiality of the products being manufactured, their toxicity, volumes and usage have not been issues of popular discussion.

End-of-life management by consumers and waste managers alone will never be enough to resolve the waste crisis in the mountains, and a larger shift is required to also look at production and bring in producer responsibility. 

THC that began in 2018 with the theme 'Reflect-Switch-Demand' was conceptualised to change this very narrative. The volunteer-led movement highlights the waste crisis by collecting trash in key socio-ecological sites across the mountain states. Audits of the littered trash conducted for numbers, types of waste, their materiality drive home how dire the waste situation is.

Not a patch of ground is found free from plastics. It has been revealed that plastic follows a one-way movement up to reach the most remote corners of the mountains, with no mechanisms or additional resources to bring those down. So while THC calls for behavioural changes at the community and institution levels, it importantly raises the concern that plastic producers are not doing enough to take responsibility for their trash in the mountains. It has grown to become the biggest voluntary Himalayan movement to demand for producer responsibility.

Unearthing a multilayered dilemma

In 2024, the THC campaign ran from May 26-June 5 and was taken forward in more than 450 sites by over 350 organisations. Over 15,000 volunteers participated across nine mountain states, with Sikkim and the Darjeeling Himalaya having the highest number of sites. As many as 121,739 pieces of waste were picked up, of which 106,857 were plastic. 

Volunteers used visual guides to note down the type of plastics in the trash such as PET, HDPE, LDPE, PVC, PP, PS and others. With a bulk of the plastics falling in the others category, 75 per cent of the plastic was non-recyclable. Only around 25 per cent of plastic waste collected was PET, HDPE and LDPE and categorised as recyclable.

This finding is consistent with the previous three years’ data, and is the main reason why mountains are burdened with the waste crisis. Mountains have several limitations for collection, transport and linkages thus even recyclables such as PET and HDPE end up littering the mountains. Multilayered plastics (MLP) add more challenges as they have no solutions and value for collection.

Plastic trash collected are further categorised into six baskets — food packaging, household products, packing material, smoking material, personal care products and others. Every year, food packaging is the highest among plastic trash, within which food wrappers top the list and then beverage and juice containers.

While there is data bias as the audit is mostly of littered items, it still provides an alarming indication of the high consumption of packaged and processed food. This year, 84.2 per cent of all plastics collected came from food packaging and most (71 per cent) of these plastics were non-recyclable. 

Mounting evidence points to the link between non-communicable disease, mental health issues and ultra processed food consumption. This spells trouble for the well being of mountain communities who are stretched in terms of health care access.

Educational institutions make a large portion of THC sites that are cleaned indicating that children consume most of these items that impact their wellbeing.  

Smoking materials were collected in high numbers after food packaging. Sanitary napkins and diapers were also found in the littered items and present a challenge of collection as they contain blood, urine and faeces. MLP shampoo sachets were also found in large numbers among personal care products.

THC has consistently found banned single-use plastic items among the waste collected, which shows gaps in the implementation of the ban. It is critical to note that the SUP ban addresses a miniscule amount of plastic produced. 

Who pollutes the mountains?

The plastic trash is also audited for brand information and the number of pieces for each brand are counted. Trash not having any visible brands on them such as plastic straws, disposable plates and plastic bags are categorised as unbranded.

The data is then collated at a mountain level to know the brands and their manufacturers whose products were found littered in highest numbers. 

For the past six years of the cleanup, the same names have featured in the list of top 10 polluters, with some changes in ranking every year. PepsiCo has been consistently at the top, as well as Chaudhary Group Foods of the Wai Wai fame. Coca Cola, Parle products, ITC, Perfetti Van Melle, Nestle, Mondelez, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (Amul), Britannia, Haldiram's Snacks, Dabur are some of the popular food companies that feature in the top polluters’ list. Tej Ram Dharam Pal, Dharampal Satyapal Group, Surya Nepal, Trimurti Fragrances and Som Pan Products are the smoking and tobacco products that were commonly found in the list. Among personal care products, Unilever packaging was a recurring finding.

Mountains demand

The need for mountain communities to reclaim the local food spaces to counter the onslaught of packaged and ultra-processed food is undeniable. There is very limited awareness on the health implications of consuming ultra-processed food and front-of-package labelling with clear, explicit and easy-to-understand information has to be made mandatory. Moreover, limiting access to these edible substances near schools needs stricter implementation. 

The Extended Producer Responsibility Rules (2022), anticipated to be the panacea for plastic pollution, have been found in most parts to be unworkable. In the mountain states, it has seen hardly any implementation, with very low awareness on the framework among local bodies.

There is a strong push for MLPs to be linked to nearest cement kilns to be used as fuel. But this solution is not without problems: Most mountain states have challenges of collection, aggregation and transportation. 

Mountain states demand for an EPR framework that works for the mountains, one that recognises its many challenges. Its effective implementation is crucial without which managing plastic waste in the mountains seems impossible.

Roshan Rai is with the nonprofit DLR-Prerna in Darjeeling and a member of Zero Waste Himalaya and Integrated Mountain Initiative.

Priyadarshinee Shrestha is a member of Zero Waste Himalaya and Integrated Mountain Initiative.

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.