Spatio temporal trends of solid waste generation in restaurants of Kargil Town of Ladakh, India

Tourist destinations in the Indian Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh are facing acute solid waste management problem which gets aggravates particularly in peak tourist season in the summer. On account of the mass flow of tourist to the region, an enormous quantity of garbage and other waste material are being produced from the restaurants daily. Kargil town located at the junction where roads from Leh, Srinagar and Zanskar meet. Therefore acts as a halt point and serves food to tourists who visit Ladakh as a result enormous quantity of waste is generated. Therefore in order to estimate the magnitude of spatiotemporal trends in solid waste generation in the restaurant industry of the town, Direct Waste Analysis Method was used and 10% representative sample was selected through random sampling technique. The result shows that restaurants in the town generate about 0.630 per day in summer season and daily waste generation is only 0.062 Metric Tonnes in the winter season. The result has shown that there is significant variation in quantity waste with regarding the space and time. The data set generated through this pilot study could be indispensable for envisaging an integrated solid waste management plan for restaurant industry of the town.