Dr Atif Javed Qazi
Plastic pollution is becoming a growing concern on Bhadarwah tourism sites. With the expansion of the tourism industry waste increasingly originates from tourism activities and ends up into the waters due to poor management of solid waste post- consumption. Un-quantified amounts of plastic materials are being discharged into waters and have detrimental effects on local marine environments. In this write-up, I’ll try to explore source, amount, and type of waste materials in Bhadarwah, by observing tourism activities, littering behaviors, and existing solid waste facilities. The article further tries to make people aware and illustrates the rexlationship between waste management and tourism that is key concern in Bhadarwah. The author being a local resident of Bhadarwah obtained data through personal visits, interviews, and observations at various tourism sites. His findings suggest that plastics waste is produced to a considerable extent by tourists. Especially, improper littering practices and limited engagement of Bhadarwah Development Authority from the tourism sector into the waste regulation framework are major predictors of leakage of plastic waste into the rivers. Based on the findings, this article further demonstrates the need for littering policy to reduce marine and soil littering.
The main objective behind writing this article is to spread awareness among the tourists as well as local residents to realise to which tourism expansion impacts on the production of waste, and in particular plastic materials, in Bhadarwah, and it can be considered a pilot for others tourist destinations of Jammu and Kashmir in with economies that heavily depend on tourism. Various factors towards soil and water pollution in Bhadarwah ranging from improper littering practices, to inefficiency of existing regulations in the waste sector by concerned authorities , cultural barriers and social norms, or scarce provision of recycling services. Based on the fact, that tourism emerges as a major factor that accounts for the largest water and soil pollution is that such quantity of waste was never seen on tourist destinations like Jai Valley, Padri Dhar, Guldanda, Nalthi Park, Lake View Park and various other surroundings before the introduction of tourism sector in Bhadarwah. The explanation for the role that tourism plays a leading role is that the production of waste from the tourism sector remains unregulated and unsurveyed and that makes it a big reason to worry. The problem is limited by a knowledge gap of scale and distribution of soil and water plastic pollution. There is an urgent need for broader investigation of the problem that can foster the implementation of sound changes to the existing tourism waste management system including behavioral, regulations, and policy changes. This article aims to inform the relationship between waste and tourism by investigating to what extent tourists and tourism infrastructures do contribute to increased generation of plastics waste in Bhadarwah. It is well known fact to everyone that plastics waste is a major contributor to soil and water litter but is being ignored by the tourists here and lack of waste regulations for the tourism sector adds fuel to the fire and is leading to deterioration of the environment in Bhadarwah.
From both interviews and the observations, tourism emerges as a waste-generating sector. Similarly, the local residents responded that tourists and tourism infrastructures account for the majority of plastics waste produced on the destinations. I request concerned authorities BDA for their observations of all tourism sites that will open their eyes, as the most eminent source of waste materials is plastics waste generated from tourists and tourism infrastructures. Since tourism activities mainly take place on and nearby rivers, plastics waste can bear detrimental impacts on the water environment. The article further aims to educate people whether visitors or residents that waste makes its way into water primarily through direct or by indirect disposal.
Proximity of food and other waste-generating activities near rivers, such as in the case of the Lake view tourist Park and Nalthi tourist park, can have detrimental effects by accounting for large amounts of single-use plastics to leak into the river. Uncontrolled dumping of waste seems have always been a problem in Bhadarwah. In fact, it is witnessed in town areas by becoming a common practice for local residents, shop keepers to disseminate waste into river near Jamia Masjid bridge area, Chanote bridge area, Chakka bridge area and more over street sweepers and waste pickers to discharge trash generated from various activities (e.g. single-use plastic plates, cups, cutlery, straws, and containers) into city that are connected to river waters. Low rates of plastics recycling are contributing factor to soil and water pollution. At present, Municipal Committee Bhadarwah is the only organisation that is responsible for plastics waste management in town and Bhadarwah Development Authority responsible for dealing with waste in tourist cities.
The authorities should immediately come up with a solution for the presence of various push factors towards leakages into the environment and soil/water pollution in Bhadarwah like:
(i) Location of food and waste-generating activities,
(ii) Recycling rate,
(iii) Social norms, and
(iv) Soil and marine littering.
Scarcity of facilities capable of dealing with plastics and other recyclables causes such materials to leak into the environment. A proper recycling plant is the need of hour to save this paradise. While observations reported that trash cans on tourism sites are easily visible, located in accessible places but are not used and if used are not emptied every morning, improper littering practices are visible all around. These include lack of segregation of waste at its source, discharge of waste into water excursions, such as in the case of Bhadarwah Town, and uncontrolled littering on locations by tourists, as observed at all observation sites. While it is true that a variety of waste materials were reported (plastics, paper, food waste, e-waste, textile, and others). Findings demonstrate that plastic is the most common waste material on tourist destinations.
It is well observed, that these plastic products originate mostly from tourists at large and by tourism owned infrastructures. Amounts of plastic products discarded on destinations and water areas range from hadful to bagful, with some peaks in the urban area of Bhadarwah Town where I we observed was cartload amounts of plastics waste in the Neeru River. A possible explanation for this pattern is that Bhadarwah Town is home to a wide variety of tourism infrastructures and food activities which generate overproduction of waste locally as well. Finally, with regard to specific items of plastics waste, the most recorded are: bottles, cups, plates, cutlery, straw, wrapping and packaging, and food containers.
Local residents-based initiatives to reduce water and soil littering in surroundings including rivers and are never seen and inefficiency of tourism management through cleanups are two main factors that further leads to eradication of waste but unfortunately are never seen in Bhadarwah.
I suggest immediate implementation three policy options to address uncontrolled waste disposal:
(i) ban single-use plastics from beaches, (ii) littering tax, and
(iii) Waste segregation at source.
I believe that these above mentioned three approaches could reduce the amount of plastic waste leaking into the environment on one hand, and generate revenues from recycling on the other by turning plastics waste into an economic opportunity. Various other policy options to reduce marine littering on long term perspective in Bhadarwah include
(i) Post-consumer waste management,
(ii) Stakeholder engagement, and
(iii) Management of waste facilities on/near destinations.
Knowledge and information gaps of how municipal and tourism sectors in Bhadarwah manage waste internally lead to lack of system transparency and subsequent inability to propose sound solutions. A sound relationship municipal-tourism waste sector should be very much clear and so that clear answers to various questions like:
- Who are all stakeholders of this relationship?
- How do they communicate?
- What are some potential communication strategies?
- Do all stakeholders access the same information?
- What are specific roles and responsibilities?
- Are local communities an integral part of the solution?
- What are potential barriers to their engagement?
(The author is lecturer, TBS Bhadarwah Campus).