Himalayan campaign asks Kedarnath pilgrims to carry back one kilogram of waste each

Environmental activist Pradeep Sangwan has launched a campaign called #CarryMeBack that asks every pilgrim travelling to the Kedarnath shrine in the Indian Himalayas to pick up and carry back at least one kilogram of waste on their return journey. Sangwan, who founded the non-profit Healing Himalayas in 2016 after years of personal clean-up treks, estimates that if 100,000 pilgrims each carry one kilogram, the effort could remove 100 tonnes of waste from the mountain corridor during the pilgrimage season.

The campaign is digitally tracked, allowing volunteers to record participation and measure impact in real time. Within the first ten days of gaining momentum, hundreds of travellers reportedly helped remove more than 1,000 kilograms of waste from the Kedarnath route. The waste stream includes plastic bottles, food packaging, raincoats, glass containers and other discarded items that accumulate near campsites and resting points as visitor numbers rise each year.

Healing Himalayas operates a material recovery facility at Kedarnath that recently reported handling 25 tonnes of segregated and baled material. More than 5.5 tonnes of that material came through the Carry Me Back initiative itself. The recovered waste includes multilayer plastic, PET bottles, cardboard, cloth, raffia bags, HDPE, paper plates and raincoats.

Sangwan describes conventional clean-up drives as a "postmortem" because they address waste only after it has been discarded. He argues that effective waste management in the mountains requires four pillars: minimisation at source, segregation systems and infrastructure, public participation, and reverse supply chains that ensure waste is transported and processed responsibly. The Carry Me Back campaign is designed to address the participation gap in that framework.

The activist has also highlighted the presence of nearly a tonne of discarded glass bottles at high altitude and questioned how such material reaches the region in the first place. His team is auditing brands to better understand waste streams and has called for greater attention to waste minimisation and scientific disposal at the foothills.

The initiative reframes the pilgrimage as an act of stewardship rather than only a religious journey. Sangwan emphasises that participants do not need to carry large quantities; even a few hundred grams per person can make a difference when multiplied across hundreds of thousands of visitors. The campaign is part of The Better India's #CivicSenseHeroes series celebrating citizens who take responsibility for shared spaces.