thrive on tourism for the local people tourists are the only way of earning a livelihood they cater to the needs of the tourists because they want them to come in big numbers they are concerned too but they also need to run a household a proper waste disposal system needs to be established in every village under proper guidance and awareness only then something can happen says anubhav citing the example of the maggie packet plastic waste which happened on the roopkund slope lakshmi shares that the demand for readytoeat meals was the major cause behind it the locals serve packaged food because tourists demand it they want to have pahado wali maggie because it is promoted so much says lakshmi who collaborates with dhabas that come on their trekking trails to serve local foodaccording to the himalayan clean up 2021 report 60 percent of himalayan region plastic waste is multilayered nonrecyclable food packagingwhile the problem of littering at tourist spots in the mountains is happening on a large scale travel groups are coming up with initiatives wherein smart ways are used to promote cleanlinessthe ecotrekkersindia hikes green trail which aims at keeping the mountain clean provides ecobags to each of their trekkers and it is a compact bag that can easily stick around yours it is mandatory for trekkers to clean up trash while they are trekking once all the trekkers collect the trash it is sent to our partner team that segregates them and treats them we also hold a cleanliness drive on every trek we have also collaborated with local villagers under this to create awareness about the same says lakshmi so far 32 treks have been done under this initiative and the 100000 kg of waste has been collected by the teambring your trash backnotonmap has a take your trash back policy where they educate and motivate travellers to bring their basic belongings and take back the trash that can hamper the destination which is proven to be successful and effective we incentify the travellers for following the responsible practices we have defined the principles of responsible behaviour and why it is important we educate our travellers and community members about the same and we have witnessed about 60 transition says anubhavlack of common languagetheres a lack of common language related to sustainability as a majority of the people havent completely understood the concept of sustainability we constantly talk about green economy and green travel but nobody questions how green is the real green can someone who uses a glass bottle in place of plastic can be called a green traveller if yes then to what degree of green is it the moment anyone does even a tad bit of sustainable activity they start boasting about it and that is how greenwashing comes so theres still a huge communication gap theres a need for a common language says anubhavuttarakhand and himachal pradesh have seen about 400 million tourists over the last ten years according