Tipping point
The HinduTo say Kangra is enchanting would be trite. But all this beauty is deceptive — the Indian Himalayan Region is facing an as yet unrecognised existential crisis: mountains of solid waste. From Kangra airport, I drive up to the office of Waste Warriors, an NGO based in Dharamshala, which works in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to educate and train people in solid waste management. The municipality has recently allotted the NGO a new site, near a mountain stream, much nearer town, to set up a new material recovery facility for non-biodegradable and recyclable waste processing. A CSIR study finds that 55% of waste generated in the Himalayan region is biodegradable and comes largely from homes and eateries; 21% is inert such as construction material; 9% is paper; 8% is plastic; 4% is glass and ceramic and 3% metal.
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