Across India, and especially in Uttarakhand, waste and water pollution have become urgent challenges. Every day, large amounts of trash and untreated wastewater end up in rivers, hills, and communities — including the sacred Ganga. While many projects and efforts are underway, the data show that much more needs to be done. This page presents clear, verified facts and numbers about waste, pollution, and health impacts, to help everyone understand the situation and why collective action is essential.
India - The big picture
- India creates ≈ 140,000-160,000 tons of municipal solid waste every day
- Tens of thousands of tons each day are not properly treated → leaks into open dumps, rivers, environment.
- The national river-cleaning programme (Namami Gange) has allocated ≈ ₹ 26,800 crore so far.
- Despite that money, the River Ganga still shows high levels of bacterial contamination (faecal coliforms), even where filtration is installed.
Uttarakhand state and Pauri Garwal district
- Waste processing capacity in many towns is very small (for example ~200 t/day in larger towns) → the rest leaks.
- The state has multiple official projects (STPs, sewer networks, waste-processing) under Namami Gange, but many are incomplete or under-maintained.
- Many mountain/valley towns still rely on open dumps or informal removal.
- Towns like Kotdwar and other small municipalities are planned for STPs of only 0.1 MLD = 100 000 litres/day or small waste-processing units. These are extremely small compared to the volume of people & visitors.
- Data suggest many hills towns generate only a few to a dozen t/day of waste — but their collection & processing systems are poor, so even this small amount causes visible problems.
Datas in our lovely Rishikesh
- Daily waste estimated at ≈ 60-80 tons/day in Rishikesh.
- Collection efficiency is roughly ~70% of that — meaning ~20 t/day (or more during peak tourism) is not handled by the formal system and can leak into drains, land or the river.
- Plastic, litter, informal dumps and river‐bank contamination visible — high risk because of the river-use, tourism, pilgrim influx.