This project will take groups of volunteers and Nepalese High School students to the Annapurna trekking area and remove trash resulting from tourism. Plastic trash and particularly discarded PET bottles will be transported to the Himalayan Life Plastic recycling plant in Pokhara. This clean up is about People and Planet: students learn to care for the environment, while actually making a positive impact at the same time.
More than a million tourists flock to Nepal annually, and many will embark on a trekking adventure in the magnificent Himalayan mountains. Unfortunately, the infrastructure to deal with the trash left behind by the trekkers is lacking. Moreover, the awareness of the need to care for the environment is only just awakening in Nepal. As a result, the beautiful Himalayan landscape is increasingly tarnished with garbage dumps. Locals use plastic bottles as fuel for their fires, causing toxic fumes.
This project will organize a series of clean-up campaign in the Annapurna region and remove a significant amount of non bio degradable garbage. Plastic trash will be transported to the plastics recycling facility operated by Himalayan Life in Pokhara. The participants will be mostly High School students, but also other volunteers. They will be guided by Himalayan Life staff, making the the clean-up campaign an educational experience. They will learn about the concept of Reuse-Recycle-Reduce.
The project will educate Dozens of students about the need to Reuse, Recycle, and Reduce. An generation will emerge which has the understanding and tools to lift Nepal out of its present environmental predicament.
