Campaign to ban plastic bags and plastic mineral water bottles in all National Parks and trekking areas of Nepal

Plastic Free Himalaya, founded in 2014, is a Nepali NGO focusing on raising global awareness on the damages of plastic for Nepal fragile ecosystem, promote alternative solutions and empower local communities towards sustainable tourism and development for future generations. Our goal is to rid the Himalayas of contaminants and promote...
Read More
Campaign to ban plastic bags and plastic mineral water bottles in all National Parks and trekking areas of Nepal

Motive Behind the campaign

Why Ban ?

Single-use plastic bags and plastic bottles can take over 1000 years to dissolve and recycling is close to impossible in the remote mountainous areas of Nepal. Plastic is hazardous for health and cause pollution that is extremely difficult and expensive to clean up in Nepal’s fragile eco-system. As an example, a kilo of garbage collected from Clean Everest Campaign cost 95 dollars per kilo.

The ban is possible : it has been done in other Himalayan regions (Ladakh, Sikkim, Bhutan) and locally, since 12 years, on the Chomrung – Annapurna Sanctuary trekking route by a local association initiative.

Preserving Nepal pristine nature, promoting sustainable tourism for long term income for local communities and enhancing Nepal’s image abroad are the main objectives of this civil society initiative

Alternatives

Visitors to Nepal should be informed of the ban and advised to bring purifying pills and water containers. All lodges on the trekking route should be required to install tab water filters and the selling of filtered water will compensate for the lost mineral water bottles. Locally made solar heaters are widely used in mountain areas of Nepal to boil water for free. And today light personal UV purifiers are also available. So alternatives to single-use mineral water plastic bottles (which are used mostly by tourists and not by local communities) exist. Lodges or local shops equipped with a filter can sell filtered water for the same but clean income.

Support

We request all friends of Nepal, trekkers and trekking agencies, National Parks, environmentalists and tourist sector activists to promote and to support this initiative to make sure that Nepal government implement swiftly the ban before it’s too late.

Let’s DECLARE NEPAL HIMALAYA A PLASTIC BAGS & BOTTLES FREE ZONE in order to preserve Nepal unique but fragile environment.

Our Campaign

Recycling of waste has never been a viable solution in the context of the Himalayas. As a solution, it is a lacking one, because it proposes that waste be managed only after collection and puts a heavy financial burden on those collecting the waste. A project to clean up the Everest region by Saving Mount Everest cost $780,000 and successfully collected 8.1 tons of garbage, which amounts to approximately $96/kg. These cleanup projects are financially and labor intensive whereas a comprehensive, publicly agreed ban on plastic bags will cost only a small amount.
Phase 1: Awareness building and publicity
Phase 1: Awareness building and publicity
Awareness building prepares the tourists and locals for the Ban and provides ample time to...
Phase 2: Implementation and Enforcement
Phase 2: Implementation and Enforcement
This is the most critical aspect of the campaign. Implementing the Ban with the support...
Phase 3: Monitoring
Phase 3: Monitoring
Simply declaring a Ban is not enough: it has to be strictly monitored and evaluated...