This is the Green Trails Report by Indiahikes for October 2023. It is an internal report written by Sharwari Brahme, the head of Green Trails at Indiahikes. It has been published without edits.

1.  As winter is almost here, let us bring back our 'One Bucket Challenge.' This week onwards, all the slopes start the challenge from the base camp to the last campsite. I am also sharing the link to the document for all the instructions and steps to implement it.

2. We experimented with the compostable packages we had procured from 'Go Do Good'. The experiment was done to see if our premix items could be put in the bags. Manish Sir tested it in the Dehradun office. The compostable bags need to be stronger in order to withhold the weight. We have given the feedback to 'Go Do Good', and we'll see if it can go through more iterations. In the meantime, we will keep looking for other organizations for sustainable packaging.

There have been more than 12 clean-ups we have had in October across all slopes. With every slope member participating, the culture of regular green sweeps is becoming more consistent. Let us target more green sweeps in November and December, especially on the trail. This is also helping the entire team come together really well.

1. Satvik, who was working with us as one of our interns, finished his internship in October. He spent two months on the slopes and has worked well. He hopes to trek with us soon.

2. Ankit, who was also working as an intern, has finished his internship. He has taken Green Trails Vision forward in the last three months. He wants to continue his journey of working towards making trekking a sustainable sport for all. He will be joining as a full-time member at Indiahikes on 20th November 2023. He will work as a GT coordinator.

3. Soham, who joined recently as a GT intern, has finished his orientation in Bengaluru. He will be reporting to the slopes on the 7th of November 2023. to start his work from Sari.

In the last week of October, Ravi Sir conducted a training for all the store incharges and trek coordinators on equipment, focusing on set-up, maintenance, and wind-up. This was done with safety and sustainability at the core. The training also focused on our Golden Six practices set at our base camp and campsites. There were a lot of learnings for the entire staff. The staff picked up on the new process. 

Here are the observations that came from Ravi Sir's side: the staff team wasn't completely aware of what our G6 practices are; they knew how a campsite is set, but what comes under G6 practices and protocols they weren't aware of. This training has helped them get familiar with G6 processes.

Congratulations to all of you. Everyone has done an amazing job bringing out the right spirit of trekking with all your groups. All of you have helped trekkers take sustainability back to their cities. All of you have also left the mountains visibly cleaner for all our future trekkers.

1. Since June, there has been a significant change in everyone's sustainability journeys. All the Trek leaders are taking up the SCP challenges and completing them successfully. This is helping all of them have engaging conversations with their teams as well as their trekkers. I have also noticed a lot of peer-to-peer learning and sharing of resources and ideas to bring in more sustainability conversations.

2. In October, the personal SCP challenges people were taking up were drastically reduced. I see that out of the entire TL team, only 2-3% of teammates are taking up monthly challenges. It was very sad to see this. Let us change for November and see to it that all of you start the SCP challenges by this week itself.

3. The drop-off boxes at all our basecamps for wet wipes and strong communication in the briefing have brought it to nearly 0 for trekkers not bringing wet wipes. All the teams did a good job.

Three weeks ago, Sudhanshu shared a message on the office WhatsApp group. The photo was of wet wipes being dug out of our older toilet pits from the Deoriatal Chandrshila trek. It was very disheartening to see this. Things like these defeat our purpose of having composting toilets, leaving a low impact on the mountains. Learning from these incidents we have taken a few strong steps and also conducted a live experiment at Sari to see the decomposition of a wet wipe versus a toilet paper.

The teams have pushed hard to achieve their waste targets in September and October. All the slopes have done really well in an attempt to achieve their targets. I want to especially mention Raithal Slope, who achieved the waste target before the end of October. Well done,  Raithal Team.

Here we are moving again from the autumn season to the winter season. Going forward, the visible litter would be comparatively less. So I'm considering the targets.


The targets for November and December are as follows: 
Raithal: 100 kgs
Sari: 200kgs
Kotgaon: 150kgs
Lohajung: 200kgs
Karchi: 200kgs
Sandakphu: 150kgs

All the best to all of you for the winter! Let's leave our mountains better than we found them:)

Indiahikes Green Trails Report - October 2023

For a long time now, there’s been a lot of hue and cry about the idea of fixed camps — the idea of camping at the same location for a longer period. I’ve been seeing other organisations targeting Indiahikes, posting pictures of our campsites, maligning our Green Trails work — all in the name of fixed camps. 

It has escalated to such an extent that the term “fixed camp” has almost become a bad word. It is now immediately associated with damage to the environment. It is considered inferior to “rolling camps” or “rotating camps” where organisations camp, pack up, leave and move to the next camp, until the next team comes. 

This idea baffles me to no end. When every ecologically evolved country of the world has adapted fixed camps as a norm, it surprises me that educated organisations in India are still debating the idea. 

What bothers me more is the lack of any logical backing in their argument. I don’t see numbers, I don’t see research. If there was any science behind it, Indiahikes would be the first to learn from it and adapt it. 

So today, after many months of deliberation, I’m going to address this topic, and go against every vehement proponent of “rolling camps” / “rotating camps.” I am going to debate you why fixed camp is infinitely better for the environment. 

I’m sharing our years of research and study on this topic. 

Important note: In this post, I’m not addressing solo trekkers or small groups of trekkers. This is meant for meant for organisations that have 3 or more groups a week, whether in the Himalayas or anywhere else in the world.

1. Fixed camping dramatically reduces the trample effect on trekking trails

This point requires a slightly deeper understanding of what “trample effect” means and why it matters.

When a trekking team of 15-20 members has to camp, it involves a whole lot of resources — tents, sleeping bags, safety equipment, snow equipment, toilet equipment, kitchen and dining equipment. Add to it food and provisions. All these have to be moved from one camp to another, usually on mules, occasionally with porters. This movement of people, equipment, provisions and mules causes something known as a “trample effect” on trails.  

This trampling of trails leaves behind an impact. It erodes away precious topsoil, which contains most of the ground’s nutrients and fertility. It bruises or shears off plants. It also compacts the soil, which doesn’t bode well for any greenery. 

 The effect is evident when you study the numbers. Consider this. 

For every team of 25 (including staff members), our gear weighs around 600 kilos for a 4-day trek. This is loaded onto mules. For a load of 600 kg, we usually have 12 mules on the trail, each carrying roughly 50 kg. 

While this doesn’t seem like much weight, here are the numbers that matter. 

Each mule, on its own, weighs around 350 kg. This is the lower average. With another 50 kilos of load, each 400 kg mule heads out on trails. 12 such mules of 400 kg walk one after the other with metal hooves on trails. 

While even humans have a small trample effect, it isn’t as heavy as a pack animal. You can read more about it in this research paper (point 6).  

So when you’re constantly pitching camps and moving to the next, taking all the equipment with you, you’re taking 12 mules of 400 kg each time, trampling trails again and again. 

Additionally, mules also consume vegetation from the trail as fodder. They eat grass, flowers and vegetation they need to stay alive. This can be quite a bit, when you consider 12 mules doing it day after day. 

When you fix a camp at a certain location, the tents, sleeping bags, toilet equipment, all the heavy equipment is taken care of. It reduces the number of mules dramatically, since all that is left to transport now is offloaded backpacks and food replenishments. The amount of weight we carry comes down to a maximum of 150 kg. This is usually managed with just three mules. 

Fixing camps reduces the trample effect by 75%. This is an incomparable benefit to the environment.

2. Fixed camps cause LESS damage to the ground than rotating camps

Many people have this contention that we camp at the same place for weeks together, damaging the ground on which we are camping. Especially the ground below and around the tents.

There is a big misconception here, which I’d like to clear out. 

There is research and scientific evidence that most of the damage on a campsite happens when you first of the damage on a campsite happens when you first pitch camp. Once pitched, the damage is much lesser as you continue to stay there. (Read research paper here)

The logic behind it is straightforward. 

When you first arrive at a campsite and pitch tents, it damages the growth under the tent. Plants/grasslands get damaged, the soil gets compacted. The impact is the maximum when you first put a tent. Over the next few days, the extent of damage on the same spot reduces. 

When you’re moving camps regularly, you pitch camps again and again, in different spots, causing damage to more surface area. The constant movement impacts the ground a lot more than staying stationed at a camp.

Side note: Many trekkers worry about camping in meadows and that it does damage to meadows. Studies have shown that meadows and grasslands, in general, are a lot more resilient and grow back easily compared to forest land (Read research paper here, Page 1). This is true from our observations too. Every time we return to the meadows to camp, there is no sign of our previous camps there. To classify fixed camps as causing “permanent damage” is a gross misrepresentation.

This is a basic understanding that the whole world works with. Trek in Nepal, trek in New Zealand, trek in Switzerland, Italy, France or Austria. You will see that there are designated campsites for a reason — to limit the impact of camping to a small area, rather than spread out. 

The biggest difference between most of these countries and India is that they have progressed towards permanent fixtures at campsites, like mountain huts, yurt camps and tea houses, which is why nobody debates them. Indian trekking is yet to develop to such an extent, where we can have permanent infrastructure on remote trails.

3. Toilets are better managed with fixed camps

Here’s another grossly misunderstood topic. Most organisations are constantly harping on about deep toilet pits causing damage to the environment. Yet, at the same time, the same trekkers are surprisingly impressed by toilet setups on international trails like Kilimanjaro and Mt Fuji.  

The only difference between the international toilets and the Indiahikes toilets are the infrastructure. They have concrete / wooden structures. We have tents. Underground, they are both the same. They are deep pits dug into the earth, their depth and size proportionate to the number of people and duration of use. 

By far, in high-altitude trekking all over the world, this is accepted as the most environmentally viable concept. In fact, I’d say at Indiahikes we’re a step ahead, because we always use accelerators that aid decomposition (like cocopeat or sawdust), something other countries don’t do. 

There are obvious benefits of deep toilet pits, compared to setting up shallow toilet pits with every campsite setup. 

 Deep pits protect the topsoil from permanent damage, and if managed well, can make the soil richer. With multiple shallow pits, the amount of topsoil removed is significantly high. However, with 2 deep pit bio toilets, we are looking at just 18 sq ft of topsoil being removed per pit.

 Deeper pit = faster decomposition. Shallow pit = slower decomposition. The process of composting benefits from a lot of heat. The larger the pit, the more the heat is retained, speeding up decomposition. With shallow pits, heat escapes within days, slowing down decomposition. 

 Deep pits protect over 80% of the campsite area from spread of human waste. When you have a fixed camp, your toilet pit requirements are limited to 2-3 deep toilet pits for the season. These are 3x3x3 in size. This way, the human waste is contained in one area. 

When you’re moving camps, you’re constantly digging shallow toilet pits for each day, increasing the number of pits at each camp exponentially, in reality around 900 toilet pits at each campsite!

 Deep toilet pits protect water sources. When you continuously dig multiple shallow pits for toilets, the more spread out human waste is going to be, going as far as the banks of streams and lakes. 

On the other hand, deep pit bio-toilets help in containing human waste to a specifically designated area. At Indiahikes, we ensure that our pits are as far as possible from the water sources.

Deep pit bio-toilets are reusable: A big benefit of a deep toilet pit is its reusability. In all our camps, we use our toilet pits in the same place, again and again, every year. 

With shallow pits, we suffer from incomplete decomposition. This makes it difficult to reuse the pits again. It creates an unnecessary need to dig out more and more shallow pits, causing long-term damage to the environment over many years. 

To read our whole article about why deep pits are more sustainable for human waste management at high altitudes, click here.

4. Fixed camps ensure less wear and tear of camping equipment, thereby reducing environmental impact

Here’s an indirect impact on the environment that not many people realise. When you’re constantly rotating camps, you’re constantly packing, unpacking and transporting your equipment. More damage is done to the equipment during these three actions than anything else. They tend to tear, the poles tend to bend or break, and pegs get damaged. 

But the damage is not the concern. There’s a larger impact on the environment. 

“Every piece of equipment has its own life cycle. It has its own carbon footprint, water footprint, ecological footprint. The more you reduce the lifespan of a product, you have underutilized the resources you have used. The more you’re wearing and tearing, the more waste you’re generating,” says Lakshmi Selvakumaran, head of Learning and Development at Indiahikes. 

“Furthermore, sports equipment is often made from polymer materials with waterproof coating. They are very very hard to recycle. On the opposite end, they are also very hard to manufacture. Chemical science is complex, the process is laborious. It requires high-end manufacturing equipment and energy. When we shorten the life-cycle of equipment, we are using more resources, leaving behind a large environmental impact,” she adds. 

Organisations like Patagonia have dedicated their entire vision towards making sports equipment more sustainable. That is the only way forward if we want trekking to grow in India. And fixed camping allows you to do that. 

When you fix camps, you pitch camps only one in several times compared to rotating camps. It goes a long way in prolonging the life cycle of the equipment, a practice that makes trekking more sustainable.

5. Fixed camps allow you to focus better the camp environment, beyond the nitty-gritties of plain camping

When our team members are stationed at one place, the “setting-up” is a one-time process. Once that is done, the only goal for them is to make the experience better and better. This is something we have a razor-sharp focus on at Indiahikes. 

This is not possible with rotating camps. We have observed that most organisations don’t involve trekkers in the campsite set-up either. It is usually staff members involved in campsite management, pitching tents, washing utensils, setting up small pits for toilets. The very next day, they hurriedly pack up, close toilet pits shabbily, leave trash behind. This is something we observe on almost all trails.  

When you fix camps, you focus on the right things — It’s like your campsite is your home. You maintain it, you host people, you treat them well and involve them in everything. Much like in your home, you try to become more and more sustainable and self-sufficient, leaving the place better than it was. 

Trekking is growing in India. Within Indiahikes alone we are seeing a tremendous increase in the number of trekkers every year. This is the case across almost all trekking organisations in the country. 

When this is the case, fixed camping is the only way forward. It reduces the amount of energy utilized, the impact on the camping grounds and the wear and tear of equipment. It aids better human waste and campsite management. It is better for the environment. 

There is ample research on this topic and enough live examples around the world to show us that it works. 

While it has become somewhat fashionable to berate fixed camping, logical and scientific evidence point to a different picture. 

I hope other organisations, the government and all other stakeholders in the Indian trekking industry take note and understand the goodness of fixed camps.

Why Fixed Camps Are Better For The Environment

fixed camps, rotating camps, deep pit toilets

Why Fixed Camps Are Better For The Environment 

Of late, many questions are being raised about what is a sound toilet system at high-altitude campsites on popular treks.

On the one hand, we have multiple organizations digging up one shallow toilet pit daily at each campsite. 

On the other hand, we have our human waste management system — 1-2 deep toilet pits at each campsite for the whole season. It’s what we follow across all slopes, on all our treks, at all campsites between 8,000 and 13,000 ft. 

Many officials, and local authorities have questioned this practice. Our tents and stoves have been confiscated. Defamatory videos have been posted sharing false information, calls to ban Indiahikes, and our teams on the slopes have been threatened. 

Yet, we firmly hold our ground about our human waste management system at high altitude camps — 1-2 large deep pits that last easily for 25 groups. These toilets are the only way forward to trek sustainably and protect the environment. 

In this post, we’d like to clarify why deeper pit systems are better for the environment and why they are followed worldwide. 

Why Deep-Pit Bio Toilets are Better for Human Waste Management at High Altitude Camps

When Indiahikes started, our human waste management system on treks was rudimentary. It was manageable since there weren’t too many trekkers. 

We started with trekkers digging individual cat holes and covering them after use. When the number of trekkers grew, we dug shallow pits that were about 1.5 ft deep and ¾ ft wide and 1 ft long. Before moving from the campsite, these pits were closed. 

But over time, we noticed a huge problem. More and more organizations were trekking. Each organization was also following this model of human waste management. Within a span of a week, each campsite had about 50 pits.  

We realized that trekking in India cannot grow this way (Read the story of how our toilets evolved). 

For everyone to trek without damaging the environment, we needed to find a more efficient way of managing toilets on a trek. 

We needed toilets big enough to last the entire trekking season. 

We needed toilets capable of degrading human waste within a span of 3-4 months. 

We studied what was done in high altitude and cold climate zones across the world — European countries, Alaska, even the North and South Poles. Closer home, we studied what happened at Ladakh and Spiti. 

We noticed that the most environmentally evolved countries use deep pit systems, for obvious benefits towards the environment. 

Over time, we switched to these deep pit bio toilets in Uttarakhand and Himachal and more recently, in Jammu & Kashmir.

Here’s what we observed to be the benefits of deep pit toilets.

Benefit 1: Deep pits protect over 80% of the campsite area from spread of human waste

We’d like to give you some numbers here. 

On any popular Himalayan trek, we have seen over 200-250 trekkers in a day on the trail, trekking with multiple organizations. For extremely popular treks like Kashmir Great Lakes and Kedarkantha, the number is a lot higher. 

Each day, around 15 shallow toilet pits are dug at EACH campsite by other organizations. Over two months, that’s 900 TOILET PITS at each campsite. 

We have seen that these pits are not used properly. They are often not closed properly. They are not covered with mud. They have toilet paper and everything else out in the open. Every ten steps you take, you step in a toilet pit. 

The impact of 900 toilet pits at each campsite at the end of the season is enormous. 

This is where deep toilet pits make better sense for the environment. 

With deep pit bio toilets, you need just 1-2 pits per campsite easily for 25 groups. The dimensions we use for these toilets are 3 ft long, 3 ft wide and 4 ft in depth. From our studies, these pits are efficient enough to handle the human waste of over 25 groups of trekkers. That’s around 625 trekkers. 

This limits the presence of human waste to one known area of the campsite. Consequently, it protects around 80% of the campsite area from being dug out for use as toilet pits. 

If every organization can dedicate 2 deep toilet pits to themselves, it would be an efficient human waste management system to protect the environment. 

Better yet, if there could be 3-4 well-maintained deep toilet pits for the entire campsite, for use by all organizations, that would be the best way forward for the environment. But maintenance is key here, which requires dedicated infrastructure, people and systems in remote areas of the Himalayas. Until this is possible, each organization must maintain their own deep pits. 

Although the biggest and the most obvious benefit of such a toilet is the reduction in the number of toilet pits being generated, there are countless other benefits towards the environment that must be considered. 

Benefit 2: Deeper pit = faster decomposition. Shallow pit = slower decomposition.

The process of composting benefits from a lot of heat. Composting is both an exothermic and endothermic process. Endothermic because the rate of composting is directly correlated to the temperature inside the pit. Second, the composting process also produces a lot of heat which is essential to kill the harmful bacteria that is present inside the compost. 

A typical compost pit goes from 25 deg C till 80 deg C and back within the span of the composting process.

However, on our mountain trails, the ambient temperature falls heavily at night, sometimes even in the negative degrees.  A simple solution to trap and retain the heat within the compost pit is to dig deep pits. It does not let the ambient temperature affect the composting process.  

In our experience, the bigger size of the pit, in addition to use of cocopeat / sawdust as a carbon element has helped decompose human waste within a span of 3 months.

Benefit 3: Deep pits protect the topsoil from permanent damage, and if managed well, can make the soil richer

The most precious layer of the soil in an ecosystem is the topsoil. With multiple shallow pits, the amount of topsoil removed is significantly higher than the amount of topsoil lost while digging deep pit toilets. This becomes evident with a simple calculation.  

For 45 groups with approximately 25 trekkers in each group, we need 135 shallow pits. 

Calculating the surface area of the top soil removed, this equates to about 200 sq ft of topsoil lost (Each shallow pit is around ¾ ft wide and 1 ft long).

However, with 2 deep pit bio toilets, we are looking at just 18 sq ft of topsoil being removed per pit. This protects a huge area of topsoil, which contains all the nutrients needed for grasslands to thrive. 

At Indiahikes, we dig 1-2 deep toilet pits at each campsite. We use this for two months, throughout the season. We use cocopeat / sawdust to bring in carbon to help decomposition. 

We cover the pits spending almost an entire day to ensure the process is followed properly. Within 3-4 months, this human waste decomposes and there’s fresh grass growing on top. Because of the way we use our pits, the soil is RICHER after decomposition, leaving the earth with well-balanced, nutritious manure. 

Benefit 4: Deep toilet pits protect water sources

Let’s talk about contamination of water sources. 

Everyone knows that campsites have to be around water sources. The moment you continuously dig multiple shallow pits for toilets, the more spread out human waste is going to be. We have seen toilet pits go as far as the banks of streams and lakes, contaminating water sources almost immediately. 

On the other hand, deep pit bio toilets help in containing human waste to a specifically designated area. At Indiahikes, we ensure that our pits are as far as possible from the water sources.

From our studies, ideally, the toilets must be at least 150 ft away from any water source.  With a landmine of shallow pits, this becomes an impossibility to maintain in a public campsite. 

Added to this, the deep pits degrade human waste more efficiently, which again neutralizes the threat of the pathogens in human waste from entering water sources. 

Benefit 5: Deep pit bio toilets are reusable

A big benefit of a deep toilet pit is its reusability. In all our camps, we use our toilet pits in the same place again and again every year. This has again helped contain the human waste management to a singular location within the campsite, creating a safe place for everyone to camp and enjoy the outdoors peacefully. 

With shallow pits, we suffer from incomplete decomposition, problems with wet wipes and toilet papers spread throughout the campsite.  This makes it difficult to reuse the pits again. It creates an unnecessary need to dig out more and more shallow pits, causing long term damage to the environment over many years. 

Indian trekking is growing every year. Trekkers are trekking on their own. Organisations are cropping up on many scales. 

At Indiahikes, we firmly believe that everyone must trek. It’s a sport that brings about a lot of good in people’s lives. But the stark reality of the trekking world today is that we cannot grow trekking without solving fundamental problems like waste management at high altitudes. 

At the end of the day, we need innovative solutions like deep pit bio toilets to effectively manage human waste and create more capacity for more people to trek sustainably. 

These scientific solutions must be accepted and encouraged. In fact, for trekking to be done responsibly, these innovative solutions must be made the norm of how trekking is done in India. 

In this post, we clarify why deep pit systems are the best human waste management systems on Himalayan treks and why they are followed world-wide.

Why Deep Bio Toilet Pits Are Ideal For Human Waste Management on Himalayan Treks

What do you expect from a starry-eyed 12-year-old who had just been proposed to go on the Roopkund trek by his mother? Excitement for sure, at the prospect of going on a vacation, but nothing more. However, doubts, fear, threats from family members gave way and the trek remained at the registration stage on the Indiahikes website.

Soon the Roopkund trek became folklore as trekking on this route was no longer allowed. Indiahikes had to stop this super-duper popular trek.

Not to be deterred, a year later I tasted my first trek with IH on the Deoriatal-Chandrashila route and then there was no looking back. It was like an addiction. The entire year I read and daydreamed about Himalayan treks. I geared to trek in May – that’s the only time the school grants us a month’s leave.

Picking litter from the trail in EcoBag. Small practices that taught big life lessons. Photo by Richik Pal

I won’t speak about how awesome the treks are. Such stories abound in gallons all around the world.

I am going to tell you about how these treks changed me as a person

While on the trek, I learned five distinct lessons that will stay with me for life.

With Arjun sir and Sandhya ma’am on Har Ki Dun-Ruinsara Tal trek. Photo by Richik Pal

Lesson 1: Learn to carry your own luggage

I had offloaded my backpack during Deoriatal-Chandrashila, my first trek. But towards the tail-end of the trek, our guide Sunil Bhaiya, put me to shame for offloading my bag as he pointed to the mule who was carrying it. From this naturally follows the next lesson.

You feel each gram of extra load, be it a pair of Tees or socks, as you climb the steep slopes. This minimalistic living habit stayed with me for all other vacations.

Seeing the mules carrying sacks of flour and veggies to the campsites, the kitchen staff preparing hot food in the freezing temperatures and carrying drums of water from the nearest water source (even if it is a couple of kilometers down the slope) gave me the third lesson. We were encouraged to eat to our fill but not waste and I heartily agreed to it.

We were the first batch to go to Ruinsara lake via Har-ki-Dun in 2019 and had met both Arjun and Sandhya, who were documenting the route. We had to dig the uneven ground at Untigad to pitch our camps. This is where I learned my fourth lesson – not to dig too deep. Digging deep disturbs the soil setting of the place.

While decamping we stamped the soil back including the rocks that we had displaced, causing the least disturbance to the natural surroundings.

This was the best lesson. For the first time, I was doing something for the surroundings – picking up waste discarded by people on the trail, mostly plastic wrappers, and filling them in bottles, making bottle bricks out of them.

Bottle bricks can be used for many functional and ornamental purposes. Photo by Richik Pal

I thought why not take this idea as a souvenir from the mountains to Mumbai-where I live? Well with my principal’s encouragement I started the drive in my school and the rest is history.

Today,  Mumbai thinks twice before throwing that bit of plastic outside their doors, thanks to the BottleBricking initiative. It has been taken up by different organizations including the Swedish Academy, the UNICEF, the city schools and the suburban communities, most importantly housing societies.

Building a community of Bottle Brickers in Mumbai. Photo by Richik Pal

Though this is the 5th lesson, it is the most impactful one. It not only turned me into a crusader against plastic pollution, it influenced my friends too. They were with me on this project.

Just the other day I was talking to Karan, a team member who is no longer in my school, he said, “Richik, mujhse plastic pheka nehi jata (I cannot throw plastic anymore).” That line struck me like lightning. This is the power of the selfless work Indiahikes has ingrained in me.

Instead of throwing away plastic, stuff them in plastic bottles and use them as support. Photo by Richik Pal

I hope to bring such positive behavioral change in people with my work and make each of us responsible for our plastic waste.

As I prepare to volunteer for Green Trails in my next trek at Buran Ghati, I am a bundle of nerves thinking of the responsibilities I will carry, whether I will be doing justice to the role that I have always dreamt of.

Bottle Bricking and Five Life Lessons I Learned While Trekking in the Himalayas

The Green Trails Fellowship came to me at a time in my life when I was looking to experience life in the mountains. I did not want to go there as a tourist or even a trekker, for that matter. I wanted to live as a local and do something that leaves an impact.

I applied for the fellowship for this reason. I was surprised and grateful when my application to work as a Green Trails Fellow was accepted. Since I didn’t have a background in Environmental Studies, I thought my chances of getting into the Fellowship were slim.

But here I am, four months later, writing this reflection, and feeling overwhelmed at the experience I had. It was an experience that pushed me out of my comfort zone and challenged me at every corner. The learnings I gained were invaluable.

I’d like to share some of them in this reflection. Let me tell you some stories from my Fellowship.

Sneha and other IH Staff at a school in Raithal. Students were introduced to the idea of waste segregation at source. Picture by Emon Roy

The growing consumerism of mountain villages

More and more packaged items have found their way into the mountains. This is the biggest problem I was working with. In the village I was working in, Raithal, I found that the demand for this came from kids. Being highly influenced by the market and their peers, I noticed that kids would snack on a lot of packaged items.

The scale of this problem was huge. Each of the 250 households in Raithal had about 2-3 kids. This was quite a number!

Their parents or grandparents had never dealt with such packaged products. They were unable to guide the children about how to dispose this waste properly. This is why these children  resorted to either littering or burning their waste.

Indiahikes’ Green Trails initiative specifically works on creating awareness programs in schools. In my workshop series with the school, I worked with 60 children. I focused my lessons on understanding the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste, the ill effects of plastic pollution and littering, segregation and how this connects to them. Just starting the conversation around waste, and what they can do with it, is in itself a big achievement.

I wanted to make sure that my lessons were not a series of lectures where I speak and they listen. I wanted them to internalize what was being said to them. For this, I asked the students who understood the concepts and ideas that we discussed, to present it to their classmates in English.

I also urged them to use an open body language. This was because I noticed that most of them spoke with their hands folded in front of them defensively. After 8 sessions with them, there was a difference in understanding. I felt not only their understanding but also their confidence. I felt extremely gratified with this work.

Sneha with her students at Raithal post a class.

During the initial survey in the village, we observed that the villagers were aware of the problem of waste in the mountains. But were not quite sure what to do about it.

In mountain villages, there is no infrastructure to deal with the waste generated. There is hardly any means to transport the waste to lowlands that do have the infrastructure to deal with waste. However, the biggest culprit of the problem of waste was and still remains to be the social unwillingness to change. This means that decades of waste just sat there on the mountains, piling up or getting burnt.

This is why we introduced the concept of upcycling to the Mahila Mandal. They came on board for the eco pillow project. The idea was to make 15 pillows and sell them to our Dayara Bugyal trekkers. We decided on a set number as this was going to be a pilot project.

However, the women who had agreed to come for the workshops did not come. To take two hours for the workshop, out of their daily routines of household work and tending to farmland, was something they thought they could not do. I realized that they did not see the long term importance of learning skills apart from farming activities.

There were just two women — Pulma Ji and Soni Bhabhi — who still wanted to go forward with the project.

This setback did not deter me, but it certainly deterred them. I decided to be their cheerleader — that person who gave them a little nudge whenever they needed some motivation. The project was a huge success thanks to the effort put in by these two women.

Pulma Ji provided a room in her house to do all the work. She also provided scissors, some old cloth, and a sewing machine. She also got her grandchildren and husband on board for this project. They delivered the product within 5 days.

These pillows were sold in just two batches of the Dayara Bugyal trek!

With this success, the women saw how easy it was to manage their time and focus on a project that goes beyond what they do on a day to day basis. It helped that earning money added a lot of value to the process.

Their success also inspired other women to get on board for a future upcycling project. The project helped me see value in perseverance, especially when there are setbacks. It also helped me understand business communication — understanding how to set up a formal structure of the buyer, mediator, and seller

The Mahila Mandal with the GT Team at Raithal that undertook the eco pillow pilot project. Picture by Emon Roy

As a Green Trails Fellow, I was living among Indiahikes Trek Leaders and Staff. I ate with them, washed clothes with them, did chores with them. They were witnesses to my idiosyncrasies, and me to theirs. In this kind of intensely intimate atmosphere, I found that it was very easy for personal and professional lines to blur.

How can I be friendly and yet be professional? How do I ensure that professional feedback isn’t taken personally? This was my biggest challenge.

When I started out, I wanted to be approachable and make good friends with the staff. Soon, I found that this made it very difficult to communicate the seriousness or timeliness of issues. An issue could be dismissed with friendly banter, or “chalo, ho jayega.”

This approach was severely tested when I was handed over the responsibility of Green Trails trek operations at Raithal. My job was to try and come up with systems that would help us run our basecamp operations smoothly, train the staff on various aspects of environmental consciousness, set up a segregation unit and washing area at the base camp. Then I was to ensure this was followed by everyone.

There were a lot of times where it became difficult to make the Trek Leaders and our staff understand the gravity of segregating at source and logging our waste. It took persistent effort and energy from me to let them understand that our close relationship did not mean that we could take professional liberties. There were times that I came across as rude in trying to impress upon them the seriousness of the work.

Then I focused my attention on trying to make them understand the need for protocols rather than calling them out. Calling them out put them on the defensive. Constant and clear communication, I realized, was the key. I realized professionalism comes in with accountability you are able to sustain. It is essential, in working relationships, not lose focus on the fact that we are all here to take the work forward.

Sorting waste from eco bags with the IH staff from Raithal. Picture by Ethan Cherry

Getting government officials involved in the work we do was also an important aspect of our trek operations. Every region has a RO (Range Officer), DFO (District Forest Officer), DM (District Magistrate).

We have been running the Dayara Bugyal trek for many years. Yet, we never got an acknowledgment from the forest officials in the work we do. This became one of my primary objectives under trek operations.

When I joined, I prepared a report of the Green Trails work we had done for the past year at Raithal and went to meet the DFO of Uttarkashi. The DFO was very appreciative of the work and was also keen to work on some of the solutions that we presented to them for waste management in Uttarkashi District. However, when it came to giving us an acknowledgment letter, he wasn’t too keen. So next time, I met the Range officer with local staff. He listened to our point of view, but we failed to get an acknowledgment letter again.

It was only when my time in Raithal was about to come to an end that we made headway with this situation. I decided to meet the District Magistrate to talk about the work we do. He was of really good help! He gave us a few suggestions to work on in Raithal and I told him about the ongoing Upcycling project & school project in Raithal.

However, the final acknowledgment had to come from the DFO. This time, I left no stone unturned. I prepared a detailed closing report of our trek operations and talked to a few people who knew the region well, jotted down points I wanted to focus on. I waited for a good 3 hours to get 10-15 minutes of his time.

With this report, he was quite happy and convinced about the work we do. He finally decided to go ahead and write an acknowledgment letter for the work we had been doing throughout the season. I couldn’t be happier! It was the perfect ending to my time in Raithal.

Being a Green Trails Fellow in the mountains is no cake walk. Here are the biggest challenges any Fellow is likely to face working in the mountains.

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