Srinagar, May 14 -- 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, colle...