The results of the top polluting companies of the Himalaya are out with plastic bottles and plastic packages of food products like potato chips, biscuits etc being the major polluters. The data comes from the recent clean-up effort of 11,000 volunteers across ten mountain states including Meghalaya who segregated and conducted waste and brand audits.
As has been the practice since 2018, Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI), Gangtok and Zero Waste Himalayas, Darjeeling had organised the Himalayan Clean-Up (THC) 2023 from May 26 to 30 in the Indian Himalayan region (IHR) involving states from Leh-Ladakh to Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim and all the north-eastern states including Meghalaya.
The Meghalaya Integrated Mountain Development Initiative (MIMDI) had also organised the clean-up in Mawlyngai village in Ri-Bhoi district on May 27. This cleaning operation involved not only waste collection but also measurement of the volume and type of brands of products making up the waste.
The total number of waste picked up by volunteers was 117,187, of which 108,799 were plastic (92.8 per cent) from 63 sites. 77.1 per cent of all plastic collected was non-recyclable, mainly multilayered plastics and tetra pak.
The Himalayan Clean Up 2023 (THC) brand audit revealed that these plastic packaged products are from PepsiCo India; Perfetti Van Melle; Parle; CG Foods India Pvt Ltd; ITC, Hindustan Coca Cola; Nestle; Tej Ram Dharam Pal Pvt Ltd; Mondelez India Food Pvt Ltd; GCMMF(Amul); Hindustan Unilever Ltd; Britannia Industries Ltd; Trimurti Fragrances; Guptaji Food Products; Vadilal Enterprises; Dabur India Ltd; Zeenat Ice Cream, Paras Surti Product Pvt Ltd, Godfrey Phillips, Haldiram’s Snacks Pvt Ltd making them the top 20 companies polluting the Indian Himalayan Region.
For far too long, the burden of cleaning up has been seen as a responsibility of consumers and waste managers alone, while the producers of waste – the companies who create the waste have shirked theirs. It is now imperative that companies take responsibility for their waste and design out waste at a systemic level. Naming these companies that are the top polluters is the narrative shift required to redress the Himalayan waste crisis.
The Himalayan Clean-Up (THC) is an annual event started in 2018 and is undertaken across the Indian Himalayan Region anchored by Integrated Mountain Initiative and Zero Waste Himalaya to highlight the waste crisis in the Himalaya and advocate for mountain sensitive policies and practices.
Non-recyclable plastics have no solutions and are not collected by any waste pickers and scrap dealers. They are found littering mountain landscapes, choking waterways, and filling up landfill sites. These kinds of plastics are the main reason why mountains are burdened with a huge waste crisis.
The food and waste intersect also emerged clearly from the THC data, with packaged food and drinks making an alarming 81.8 per cent of all plastic waste collected. This intersection has become extremely apparent looking at data since THC was conceptualised in 2018. It is an indication of the junk and processed food culture that is overtaking the diverse local food cultures of the mountain states.
These foods low in nutritional value and high in salt, sugar and fat contribute to the fast growing non-communicable lifestyle diseases in the Himalaya. Even before the packaging is trashed it is already a threat to the wellbeing of communities. 73 per cent of food packaging was non-recyclable multilayered plastics showing how a change in eating habits is contributing to the waste crisis.
“The journey of THC 2023 from 2018 shows the unabated onslaught of plastic waste in the Himalaya and the need for urgent, emergency response to the crisis at the individual and institutional levels. It calls on individual action to reduce waste and move to mindful consumption. Intersecting issues of food and nutrition security and the climate crisis in the waste management narrative is critical for sustainable solutions,” said Priyadarshinee Shrestha, Secretary, Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI).
“Waste management is a challenging task in the mountains and this needs to be acknowledged with adequate resource allocation and mountain sensitive policies. THC demands companies to stop polluting the Himalaya,” she added.
