PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kaisha Industries, Natural Water Industries, Parle, Vinayaka Industries, Hornbill Industries, ITC, CG Foods, Perfetti Van Melle, Nimoj Industries, Parshuram Packaged Drinking Water, Nestle, Fresho Beverages, Linggi Lehmo Beverages, Haldirams, Pran, Dabur, Mondelez, and Reliance have been ranked as the top 20 polluters. The ranking was done after cleaning up 148 sites and auditing 2,17,854 plastic waste items across the eight mountain states.
While global and national brands have remained the top polluters, The Himalayan Cleanup (THC) has concluded that local bottled water brands are among the major polluters in the region.
THC is an initiative of Zero Waste Himalaya and the Integrated Mountain Initiative, and since 2018, they have been holding polluters responsible to do better and more to control plastic waste. The audit has revealed that 93% of the total waste collected was plastic, with nearly half of it not recyclable. Such initiatives are a reminder to companies to do better and own up to their responsibility. Profiting from polluting an environmentally fragile region is not an ethical business practice.