Mountains are the part of our social, traditional and natural legacy and to preserve and restore this legacy we have begun an initiative to clean our nature and keep its beauty intact and graceful as ever. To keep the mountains clean and beautiful as ever we are implementing a number of schemes out of which a few are extremely impactful. From inhabitants to trekkers we are making everyone aware about the pros and the change we collectively could bring to this Mother Nature and to our own lives as well. Mero Pahad is one such project which is being inaugurated on the auspicious day of our Independence where we would take our hands out to join to curb the problem of pollution on the treks due to human activities.
Mero Pahad as the name suggests is the brain child of Trekveda, one of the eminent trekking community in India which goals to create a bond among the people and the mountains. In this project, the community will raise the awareness among the people from all walks of life to protect and preserve their legacy and their natural habitat “the mountains” and not to treat them badly by polluting them. From trekkers to students, everyone will be made aware about the harms of the pollution caused due to the negligence and other human activities and how fatal they could prove to the human lives and their livestock.
The Initiative is not confined merely to cleaning or preserving the nature but also to make the people aware about the pros of such practices and cons of the pollution and the factors responsible for that.
In our society or our socio-economic architecture, cleaning is still considered as the most pity job one could ever do, hence we are being born and brought up with such a mindset. However, it’s of no shame to clean and preserve what we love.
Often, we encounter the people who are inferior to the issues such as global warming and pollution and these people out of their negligence to these severe issue tend to create the utmost pollution on the trek.
“We are here to have fun not to clean the mess”- this is an attitude we come across more often, whenever we urge the people to clean the treks or something similar to this.
However, all colors are not dark so does we use to meet the people who are concerned about the nature and the mountains as they keep the trails pollution free by utilizing number of ways such carrying an additional bag or something for their own convenience as well as with the view to keep the trail as pretty as it’s before.
In this phase, we meet with the children of the different schools with an aim to make them learn the importance of the mountains in their lives. We tend to connect the mountains and their vibes with children in order to drive them with an aim to clean their natural abode.
To propagate our mission of “Mero Pahad” Trekveda community is planning to extend their hands to the school and to connect with the children of the school while detailing them the importance of protecting the mountains and keeping them clean for the better lives in the future.
“Mero Pahad” project is also extending its hands to the cities of the Uttarakhand by placing the dustbins across the Dehradun with a vision to keep the city of love clean and green forever.
Practicing all such small steps will garner the huge support base for Trekveda and its clean mountain initiative with such a pomp and show in which we will be adding the cities as we will succeed in our mission of protecting the legacy.
We would not confine this mission only to the awareness and putting the dustbins across the roads but also act as the cleaning warriors who will clean the treks as we move with our trekkers. Our trekking team will collect the waste during the trips and bring it to the plains for the proper disposal. This will be a continuous process where our trekking teams will be assigned with the tasks to clean the mountains and to bring the garbage for the proper disposal.
Before we discuss isolation and reusing, we should discuss waste accumulation. We are by all account not the only ones who trek in the Himalayas. A large number of individuals trek, either with associations or all alone. Shockingly, not every person knows about or instructed about the results of careless transfer of waste, particularly in such fragile environments as the Himalayas. To counter this issue, we concocted the possibility of Eco-Bags.
Eco-sacks are little packs that can be tied around your midsection like a belt. They go about as waste accumulation packs while you're trekking. We give Eco-packs to every one of our trekkers amid a trek. Aside from gathering their own waste, they're additionally asked for to get any loss from the trail like chocolate wrappers or plastic containers. By the day's end, all the waste is gathered at the campground.
Since the waste is gathered, what's the following stage? We isolate the waste. On the off chance that the climate conditions are great, trekkers are requested to volunteer to assist the camp staff with the isolation. There are essentially two kinds of waste – wet waste and dry waste. The dry waste can be additionally separated into recyclable and non-recyclable waste.
In Trekveda we take after a 4-way isolation framework:
Generally every one of the trekkers and the camp staff accumulate and isolate the waste. We at that point pack the isolated waste in sacks and check them as needs be. With the assistance of donkeys or steeds, the sacks of waste are sent down from the higher camps to the base camp. Toward the finish of each trekking season, we either send all the isolated waste to Waste Warriors, Dehradun or we give away the recyclables to kabadiwalas and arrange the non-recyclable waste at the closest landfill.
This abandons us with just wet waste. The vast majority of our wet waste is from the kitchen, sustenance waste and human waste. For all our wet waste, we keep up a season long manure pit. We take after the least complex type of treating the soil, which requires dry leaves/coco-peat, the wet waste itself, some measure of dampness, air and soil. The pits generally measure no less than 3 cubic feet, except if there is shortage of room at the campground. In campgrounds that are excessively rough, a lifted nook is made to be utilized as the manure pit. The compostable waste (paper and thin cardboard) is blended with this wet waste and utilized as a part of a manure pit.
Aside from this, old reports that are of no utilization wind up as paper waste. In spite of the fact that this can be utilized as a part of our fertilizer pit, we attempt to discover elective approaches to reuse it. As of late, we began reusing this paper waste to make reused paper. The perfect plastic spreads from our stock segment is additionally upcycled in various ways.
"I'm just an individual, what effect would I be able to conceivably have?" - Psychological Drawback
After every one of that, lets come back to the inquiry tormenting the psyche of the tired trekker, depleted from the uneven ten hour drive to base camp, tuning in to the trek pioneer who has now proceeded onward to examining the significance of equally spreading coco peat over crap in the can tent.
Truly, exhausted trekker, you are only one individual.
In any case, with a humble exertion, you can expel 1 kg of waste from the mountains every day of your trek; and with each bit of plastic put into your Eco Bag, you are sparing Himalayan vegetation, untamed life and villagers from having lamentable finishes.
By compelling yourself to focus and to not "look the other way" you are keeping incalculable kilos of junk from being singed, discharging super poisons into the air that nearby kids take in while strolling to class. You are likewise shielding the icy masses topping our tops from transforming into puddles.
“Mero Pahad” is an initiative by the Trekveda in order to protect and clean the mountains from unwanted waste material caused due to human activities. We are pledged to contribute and curb the problem of wastage. With this initiative we are aimed to connect with more people for this noble cause and will extend our hands as we proceed.