The hills may offer tourists cool air, rain and breathtaking scenery, but some visitors are leaving behind an ugly souvenir , used children’s diapers dumped beside waterfalls, springs and mountain streams, turning the scenic landscape of Malike-Kohsar into an environmental and sanitation concern.
Tourists turn mountain streams into diaper dumps
Roy Zia Ur Rehman
MURREE, Aug 11 (APP):The hills may offer tourists cool air, rain and breathtaking scenery, but some visitors are leaving behind an ugly souvenir , used children’s diapers dumped beside waterfalls, springs and mountain streams, turning the scenic landscape of Malike-Kohsar into an environmental and sanitation concern.
With summer holidays entering their final weeks, families are packing children into cars for one last spell of cool air, rain and mountain scenery.
Beyond Bhara Kahu, the plains give way to green slopes, rain-fed channels, roadside springs and water tumbling down rocky hillsides. Cars pull over. Children splash in the cold water. Parents take photographs. Drinks are cooled in running streams.
Some are scattered beside streams; others are wedged between stones. A few still contain urine or faecal matter. After heavy rain, they can be swept into drainage channels and carried downstream.
The very product designed to keep a child dry can become a stubborn source of pollution once it is tossed into the environment.
Disposable diapers contain cellulose, synthetic materials and superabsorbent polymers. Unlike paper or tissue, they do not simply disappear. They can remain in the landscape for years while the waste inside them poses an obvious sanitation concern.
During a visit to a roadside watercourse, APP spoke to Qurat-ul-Ain, who was travelling with her family from Lahore. A used diaper had been left beside the water.
Asked why, she said she had no shopping bag in which to carry it until she found a bin.
She acknowledged that such waste was spoiling the beauty of the area.
Another family, visiting from Jhelum, admitted washing their child after defecation with stream water and leaving the used diaper nearby.
Their question, however, was one that authorities cannot brush aside:
The family called for covered waste drums at popular roadside springs and water channels, along with prominent signs warning visitors against washing faecal waste or throwing diapers into running water.
For a tourist, a discarded diaper may be out of sight after a few minutes. For people living downstream, it can be another matter altogether.
Saif Khalid, a local resident, told APP that diapers and other rubbish washed down by heavy rain sometimes become trapped in water channels near homes.
He said awareness needed to begin on the road itself, with signboards, public-service messages and campaigns involving local authorities and the National Highways and Motorway Police.
Dr Suleman told APP that faecal matter should never be washed or disposed of in natural water channels, particularly where the water flows towards settlements or is accessible to others.
The World Health Organization warns that faecally contaminated water can spread diseases including diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. Poliovirus, in particular, spreads mainly through the faecal-oral route and can also be transmitted through contaminated water or food.
This does not mean every discarded diaper contains a dangerous pathogen, nor can one diaper be said to contaminate a specific distance of a stream. But putting human faecal waste in or beside flowing water creates an entirely unnecessary contamination risk.
Covered bins, regular waste collection, clear warning signs and simple public-awareness campaigns could go a long way. So could one small change in tourist behaviour.
Parents already pack spare clothes, bottles, snacks, toys and extra diapers for a day in the hills.
The streams and springs of Malika-e-Kohsar are not rubbish bins. They are part of the landscape, ecology and natural drainage system that make the hills worth visiting in the first place.
Tourist-related pollution has become a chronic problem in the hills, with short-lived, on-and-off awareness campaigns failing to bring any lasting change.
Discarded diapers make the problem particularly troubling, as they can contain human faecal matter and other contaminants that may enter streams and natural water channels.
These waterways are not merely scenic attractions; local communities, birds and other wildlife may depend on them for water, making careless disposal a potential health and environmental hazard far beyond the spot where the waste is dumped.
