DIRANG, 3 Jun: Over 370 kgs of waste was collected from Sangti River here in West Kameng district during a cleaning drive under the Himalayan Cleanup campaign on 28 May.
Northeast Waste Collective (NWC), an NGO working
with the local community in handling waste since 2020, organized the river cleaning drive in collaboration with Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the community of Sangti Valley.
The collected waste was segregated in three main categories-recyclable, non-recyclable and reject. The recyclables were further segregated into sub categories-white plastic (polythene + LDPE), black polythene, colored plastic, hard plastic, cans, pet bottles, glass bottles, tetra packs, tin, fabric, MLP among others, so that it can be channelized for recycling, the organizers said in a release.
Sangti Valley has a community-owned material recovery facility from where recyclables are regularly sent for recycling through local scrap dealers, the release said.
All the plastic waste categorized were then clubbed together and segregated brand-wise as part of the brand audit, which is the main component of the Himalayan Cleanup, it said.
The top five polluters identified from the brand audit were Heaven Aqua, Mountain Dew (PepsiCo), Bikaji, Coca Cola and Maggi.
“The categorization is done to understand the biggest polluters in the Himalayan region so that we can demand accountability in fulfilling their Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) obligations as per the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules 2024 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC),” the release said.
“As per the EPR, the brand owners are supposed to ensure that the waste generated from their products are collected and sent for recycling,” it said.
NWC and the community thanked them for their selfless act and words of praise and bid them goodbye with a lot of positive memories of the day.
Around 100 ITBP jawans participated in the cleaning drive.
