Public involvement in solid waste management in Himalayan trails in and around the Valley of Flowers, India

The Himalayas have always been tranquil, religious and enchanting for meditation, worship and recreation for saints, pilgrims and tourists respectively. But today there is no significant difference between metropolitan towns on the plains to tiny tourist/religious spots in the hills of the Himalayas owing to a high influx of more than 1.16 lakh visitors within a 4-month season in a year. The beautiful treks from Govind Ghat (1928 m) to Hemkund Sahib (4329 m) and the Valley of Flowers National Park have suffered from litter and foul smells due to unattended solid waste. In the first part of the study, the perceptions of participatory groups such as visitors, stall keepers, the host community, the Gurudwara management committee (GMC) and district administration (DA) regarding environmental assessment of solid waste management (SWM) have been taken into account. Since visitors and stall keepers are the major contributory participatory groups in generating and causing primarily solid waste problems, they were studied in detail. The local villagers as a host community by means of participatory interactions and meetings were assessed as an important participatory group along with assessments of their other problems. In addition, the GMC and DA have been assessed as regulatory participatory bodies at local and government levels for ongoing tourism activities and the resultant solid waste problem. Three hundred and fifty one visitors and 40% of the stall keepers were thoroughly interviewed. The second part of the study highlights the estimation of solid waste generation from the essential commodities supplying visitors at halting areas (e.g. Ghangariya) and Hemkund Sikh shrine. Solid waste generation from stalls was measured at >50% of the total waste. Chemical analyses were also conducted for suitable waste. Based on average results, some of the practical but small recovery packages of SWM options such as reuse and recycling were suggested to eliminate the problem completely from the religious–tourist sites in the Himalayas or from other similar mountain regions of the world.