Trash Trouble in Paradise

Despite rules on paper and growing piles of garbage on the ground, Kashmir's waste problem is spinning out of control. What's missing isn't awareness. It's will, coordination and accountability.

- Dr. Ashraf Zainabi

The mess is everywhere. In cities like Srinagar and towns across Kashmir, waste piles up in drains, open fields, and riverbanks. Most of it is unsegregated, unchecked, unregulated.

Despite having rules and guidelines on how to manage this waste, enforcement is patchy, infrastructure is missing, and the people supposed to act either don't know how or don't care enough.

Take Srinagar for instance. The city generates close to 450 metric tons of solid waste daily, of which 62% is organic and around 7% is plastic. That's just one city.

Across the valley, the daily solid waste tally reaches 1,550 metric tons. Officially, only 606 metric tons are said to be processed, but this number is questionable.

In most places, collection is mistaken for processing. And the waste that escapes both ends up in the open or flows into water sources without any record.

The sewage situation is no better. Most of the region lacks proper sewerage networks. Even in areas that do have them, the infrastructure is old, overburdened or simply not maintained.

Raw sewage from colonies in places like Natipora and Barzulla finds its way into canals like Doodh Ganga, which provides drinking water to Srinagar.

How much untreated sewage flows into our rivers and lakes is not known to anyone. Not the authorities, not the public, not even those responsible for water supply. That's both frightening and unacceptable.

In North Kashmir, towns like Baramulla and Sopore, home to over two million people, have no formal waste management system. The garbage is often dumped near rivers such as the Jhelum, affecting not just aquatic life but also human health. In the rainy season, the situation worsens as waste clogs drainage systems, increasing the risk of floods.