Tourists and the growing mountain of trash in Himachal

This summer, Himachal’s hill stations have witnessed a heavy influx of tourists. It has in turn significant increase in litter, with trails of trash now becoming a part of the sensitive mountain ecosystem.

This situation has raised serious concerns among environmentalists, who worry about the impact. With over 74 lakh tourists visiting Himachal till May this year, tourist footfall was up 3.5 % from last year.

The scenic Kullu district has emerged as the most sought-after destination. Nearly 15 lakh tourists visited the district till May, with many heading beyond the higher ranges of Lahaul and Spiti and even visiting Leh during the summer.

Garbage generation has increased manifold in hill towns with the advent of the latest tourist season.

Manali faces the brunt

Manali, a focal point for tourism in Kullu, has borne the brunt of this environmental strain. The town’s waste treatment plant, designed to handle 20 to 30 tonnes of garbage daily, is now inundated with 70 to 100 tonnes — a stark overextension of its intended capacity.

”The waste treatment plant was set for treating 20 tonnes of garbage generated from seven municipal council wards. It is forced to cater to three other nagar panchayats. Garbage collected from Sarchu to Rohtang In Lahaul and Spiti district and then from Kullu’s Soja and Kasol, a village known as the ‘Tel Aviv of the hills’ due to its popularity with Israeli tourists, is also dumped in Manali’s waste treatment plant. It has become difficult,” Manali nagar panchayat head Chaman Kapoor said.

“The plant cannot run beyond capacity, subsequently, we will not allow garbage from other areas to be dumped in Manali,” he added.

Kullu deputy commissioner Torul S Raveesh said the administration has adopted various measures to minimise littering.

“We are encouraging the panchayats and nagar parishads to set up their waste management plants. The district administration has roped in non-government organisations and the mahila mandals to carry out cleanliness drives,” she said, adding that the focus is to construct material recovery facilities.

Highway horror

A significant part of the waste generated in tourist towns, Shimla, Manali, Dalhousie, Kasauli, Narkanda Chail and Spiti is being attributed to irresponsible disposal of garbage by tourists.

The trash can be seen piling along the national highways connecting Manali to Leh. Plastic waste too is littered on the national highway connecting Shimla to Rampur.

“For the last several years, we have been trying to set up waste management systems and running cleanliness drives to educate the local population as well as the tourists, so they learn how difficult it is to dispose of the waste. A lot of trash is generated at the tourist hot spots,” Pradeep Sangwan, the founder Healing Himalayas, a non-profit organisation working on the waste disposal problem, said.

“Instead of looking at the problems, there is a need to educate people about how sensitive the Himalayas are,” he said, adding that tourists visiting the hills need to dispose of the garbage responsibly.

Heaps of garbage can also be seen in the Western Himalayan Park, Glen Nature Park, Natural Trail, Kufri Hills, Mashobra and Naldehra surrounding Shimla.

“Tourists visiting the hills should help in maintaining the beauty of hills, instead of throwing trash and empty wrappers, liquor and cold drink bottles,” Ajit Singh, a resident of Baldian, a village located five km from the scenic Mashobra, a tourist resort town near Shimla.

Such is the magnitude of the problem that residents of towns bordering China also complain of littering. “We keep educating tourists and taxi drivers not to litter in the hills,” Chitkul gram panchayat pradhan Baldev Singh Negi located at 11,000 ft above sea level in Kinnaur district.