Nothing about the environment here is going well right now. Ladakh finds itself buried in garbage it was never built to handle, without the facilities to manage it properly. It wasn't always this way — everything used to be organic and reusable, and a rubbish problem simply didn't exist as a category. Tourists have changed that, leaving waste behind not just in hotels but in the streets and the streams.
During the tourist season, sheer numbers make the problem close to unmanageable. Oddly, tourists seem to hold themselves to a different standard depending on where they are — conscientious about litter while out in nature, considerably less so once back in the city.
I would like tourists to be more aware of our fragile environment.
Water is under similar pressure. Hotels in the upper part of town draw heavily from the mountain supply, leaving households in the lower town short — queuing daily at communal pumps for what used to be distributed evenly across fields and gardens before hotel demand reshaped the system entirely.
The fix he'd ask of visitors is small and specific: request organic food where you can, and use the compost toilet instead of the flush one. Neither costs a tourist much. Both matter more here than almost anywhere else.