PepsiCo India, CG Foods (the makers of Wai Wai), Parle, Coca Cola India and ITC were revealed as the top five polluters of the Indian Himalayan region for 2024.
The top polluters were identified through The Himalayan Cleanup campaign that is conducted across mountain states in which volunteers clean up various sites and audit the waste collected. The findings were announced by the Zero Waste Himalaya (ZWH) platform and Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI) during a webinar on Zero Waste Himalaya Day on August 8, followed by a workshop organised on August 12 in Gangtok.
ZWH and IMI are the lead organisations conducting The Himalayan Cleanup (THC) since 2018, with a waste and brand audit to name the companies that pollute the Himalaya, and call them out to take responsibility for their plastic waste through the extended producer responsibility rule, which is already notified by the government. This rule, however, finds little to no implementation in the mountains, the IMI said in a press release today. This year, more than 15,000 volunteers participated in the campaign cleaning up more than 350 sites and auditing waste in over 150 sites to raise their voices against these plastic polluting companies. Sikkim and Darjeeling had the highest number of cleanups conducted.
The Meghalaya Integrated Mountain Development Initiative (MIMDI) is the state chapter of IMI in Meghalaya.
IMI secretary Roshan Rai highlighted that existing policies and practices are not sensitive and sufficient to respond to the waste crisis and that there was a need to acknowledge the socio-ecological importance, fragility and challenges of the Himalaya. He mentioned the need to shift the solution narrative beyond the broom, bin, landfill, burn and roll it downhill and to move towards systemic solutions.
The presentation on findings of THC 2024 by Priya Shrestha, member of ZWH, highlighted that 1,21,739 pieces of waste were picked up by volunteers, of which 1,06,857 was plastic (87.7 percent). Only 24.8 percent of the plastic waste collected was recyclable, while the rest were all non-recyclable plastics. “The mountains are struggling with collecting and linking recyclable plastics for processing and then, to top it all, these multilayered plastics add more challenges as they have no solutions and value for collection,” the release stated.
Food packaging was consistently the highest trashed item at 84.2 percent of all plastics, which indicated the high consumption of junk processed food. Twenty-two percent of all beverage bottles collected was of the energy drink Sting, which had very high consumption among students, though it was not labelled as not recommended for children. The food and waste intersection was highlighted as very concerning for mountain communities, as mounting evidence showed the junk processed food to be the leading cause of non-communicable diseases.
Along with the top 5 polluters, Perfetti Van Melle, Hindustan Nestle, Mondelez India, Amul, Tej Ram Dharam Pal, Trimurti Fragrances, Parle Products, Dharampal Satyapal (DS) Group, Hindustan Unilever, Haldiram’s Snacks, Surya Nepal, Dabur India, AAECG-Surya Nepal, Britannia Industries, Ventures were found in the top 20 companies polluting the Indian Himalayan Region from the Himalayan Cleanup 2024.
Participating organisations and schools gave key suggestions on moving towards systemic solutions, on tackling the issue of high junk food consumption and how EPR could be made more effective for the mountains. The event ended with a unanimous call to the plastic polluting companies to take responsibility for the plastic trash they were dumping in the mountains.
