In the world of the outdoors, there is a stereotype – that you cannot perform well as a vegan outdoor leader. This is because most people feel that purely plant-based diets, cannot sustain the rigor that an outdoor profession puts a person through. 

Indiahikes Trek Leader Nitesh Kumar shatters this claim. Not only is he a vegan outdoor leader, but his duties also involve trekking the wide expanse of the Himalayas. Leading trekkers up and down these beautiful, yet sometimes treacherous mountains. 

Meeting Nitesh was an eye-opener for me. He is Indiahikes’ first vegan Trek Leader’. Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard people debate whether plant-based or vegan diets contain enough protein to sustain high-performance athletes. These athletes require a higher intake of protein not only to build and grow their muscle mass but to recover from their exercise.

Trekking is a high-performance and high-intensity exercise. Nitesh is trekking in the Himalayas at least 24 days in a month. He does close to 40 treks each year. He’s led batches to the newly opened Gidara Bugyal Trek, Mukta Top, Pin Bhaba Pass, and Dayara Bugyal, just to name a few.

His body is a trekking machine. Yet is entirely fuelled completely by vegan foods. At higher altitudes, and sub-zero temperatures, this is a unique challenge for the body.

Nitesh tells me about one of his inspirations – Kuntal Joisher. Joisher was the first vegan to successfully summit Mt Everest. His equipment and his food were all 100% animal-free.

│Challenges of being a vegan Outdoor Trek Leader in the Himalayas

In cities, there are vegan alternatives to most dairy foods – vegan milk, vegan butter, vegan ice-cream, the list goes on. Adding to this, you can find dry fruits, leafy vegetables, and pulses quite easily.

This is not so in the remote mountain villages. Sometimes, groceries must travel for days before they reach a store.  This means that Nitesh cannot operate on a whim, or buy things as and when he realized he can. 

“I usually plan my meals for about a month and a half in advance”, says Nitesh. This means buying and preparing his nutrition for a month and a half and carrying it with him everywhere he goes. This also makes him practice sustainability. He doesn’t buy any packaged products and gets all of his nutrients directly from the sources.

Further, how does one stay vegan when the sweet milk chai of the mountains, is an affair on its own!

Not having any stores around is a blessing in disguise for Nitesh. He says that this allows him to be a vegan in a true, and different sense. He says he is not distracted by the luxury of alternatives that you can find in cities.

Instead, Nitesh buys dry fruits and seeds – chia, sesame, poppy, flax, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds, and roasts them together, and then powders them. This he says is just one of his staples. He does this while he is at home, or in the mountains.

Step 1 – Roast the mixture of chia seeds, sesame, poppy, flaxseed, sunflower seeds. Picture by Nitesh Kumar

Step 2: Powder the seeds into a fine mixture in a mixer grinder.

│Getting enough nutrition to lead treks 24 days in a month

While trekking, a healthy intake of calcium and proteins is a must. You exert your body more than usual and burn far more calories. An approximate intake of 1.2 g to 2 g of protein is recommended.

Nitesh tells me that many of his fellow Trek Leaders and trekkers have a common misconception about vegans. I was guilty of this too, that is until Nitesh clarified it for me.

He says that most people are convinced that without dairy and other animal proteins it is impossible to fare well in any physically demanding outdoor profession. Further, they think that being a vegan also delays the body’s ability to recover from injury and stress.

A high altitude and high-intensity profession like a Trek Leader is the epitome of outdoor professions.

Remember a Trek Leader does not do the trek only once, they are running up and down throughout the trek, ensuring that all their team members are safe.

Nitesh shakes his head with a smile as he explains, “As a vegan, I am not depriving myself of any nutrition. This is one misconception that everyone has. All the nutrition that a vegetarian or non-vegetarian has, I am getting them. It is just the way in which I get them.”

Nitesh carries a mixture of seeds, sprouts, grains, self-made peanut butter, almonds cashew, apricots, etc. He eats a lot of varieties of vegetables, specifically green leafy ones. He also doesn’t miss a chance to eat fruits, whatever is available in a particular region, and season.

Meal prep: Nitesh’s diet consists of a lot of leafy and green vegetables. Picture by Nitesh Kumar

While there are vegan protein supplements Nitesh does not take any. He only takes a Vitamin B12 supplement because every human body is deficient in vitamin B12. This is not restricted only to vegans.

Further, he integrates a lot of dal and pulses into his diet. “All these plant-based ingredients have enough nutrients to sustain my body during my treks. My body feels very light, stronger, fueled with energy, and improved reflexes as well. In fact, the quality of nutrition obtained here is much higher than any normal day routine.” says Nitesh.

Four Himalayan treks a month also means that his body, especially his muscle tissues are prone to a lot of wear and tear, and injury. It is proven that vegan diets 

Vegan diets play a major role in maintaining cardiovascular health. This is critical for endurance athletes. 

A paper published  by the National Centre for Biotechnology- ‘Vegan diets, practical advice for athletes and exercisers’, says    “ vegan diet could offer potential performance benefits due to the antioxidant (polyphenols), micronutrient (vitamin C, E) and carbohydrate-rich foods typical of plant-based diets assisting training and enhancing recovery.”

Nitesh’s diet includes a lot of pulses and dals. Picture by Nitesh Kumar

│How the mountain staff help and support his choice to be a vegan outdoor leader

“At first the mountain staff and cooks would think that this is something peculiar. But after I would sit with them, and take the time to explain why I am a vegan, I could feel a sense of respect from them. They would appreciate my choice. Earlier I would have to tell them that I don’t eat ghee, milk etc, but now they ensure to set aside some vegetables or dal for me before adding milk or ghee.”

Nitesh explains to the mountain staff that his choice to turn vegan was primarily because of his love for nature, and his love for animals. He tells them that he could not bear to eat any dairy products knowing the manner in which the dairy industry works. 

“Many people say that in the mountains there is no dairy industry and that we get milk straight from the cow. They ask me why I still don’t drink milk.” 

To this he says, “Firstly, in the true sense of being vegan,I cannot take advantage of any animals, and dairy products. Secondly, I feel like I am taking away milk from a baby calf, and disturbing the beautiful relationship between a cow and a calf.”

Researchers at the University of Oxford found that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual’s

Nitesh says that the mountain staff supporting him, and believing in his choice to be vegan has helped him a lot. Without this, being a vegan in the mountains would be a huge challenge.

Nitesh at Kallapatthar (18,200 ft) on the Everest Base Camp Trek.

Nitesh believes that in a few years, there will be a lot more vegan athletes and trekkers in the world. He says, “We cannot ignore the huge negative impact that the meat and dairy industry has on the environment. Secondly, more and more people are discovering that being vegan is a much healthier and active lifestyle.”

While being a vegan outdoor athlete is gaining a lot of popularity for all the right reasons in the west, India is just a little behind. But Nitesh thinks thanks to social media, and strong people committed to the environment, the awareness of being vegan is increasing.

“I want to be an inspiration to outdoor people that it is possible to be vegan, and excel at a physically demanding job. Being a Trek Leader I have the opportunity to interact with many trekkers. I get to share my journey with them, and hopefully inspire a few to become more sustainable,” says Nitesh. 

This vegan outdoor Trek Leader is breaking dietary stereotypes and perceptions associated with eating only plant-based proteins. Read on to know more!

How This Vegan Outdoor Trek Leader Is Breaking Dietary Stereotypes

Our Green Trails head, Lakshmi Selvakumaran, gave a TedX talk at the reputed NITK Suratkal campus on January 18th, 2019. While we await the official video, here is the full script. 

Last year I was on the Chandrashila summit. You must go there if you can. It is not a difficult trek, but the sight that you see from the summit can knock you off your feet. When the first rays of the sun touch the Chaukhamba massif, this is what you see:

This trek starts from Sari, a small village in the remote part of Himalayas with not more than 150 houses. 

In one corner of this village is a small gully in the mountain side, filled with trash.  Most of it tourism waste. This village has many such dump spots. But this is not unique to Sari. Most trekking villages in our Himalayas face the same problem.

Take a look at this beautiful meadow. Just behind the mule, in the opening between the mountain is a similar waste dump.  All our treks share the same fate.

Now, I want you to try imagine this wilderness:  These places are very inaccessible. There aren’t any corporation, municipality, any bodies to take care of the place.  Dustbins, waste collecting vans – things we are used to in the cities are hard to imagine here. The nearest landfills are almost 250 kms away.   

How can you solve the problem of waste in such a place?

This is what my team has been working on for the past 6 years. I head the Green Trails team. The Green Trails Project is an independent division of Indiahikes, one of India’s largest trekking organisation. 

The problem we are working on is this. To find a way to clean up the mountains and reduce the inflow of litter.

Our idea to solve the problem was simple. Educate trekkers and villagers around trekking zones, provide a proper waste collection system, transport the waste to landfills and find a way to maintain it over time. To me, it was a matter of providing the right infrastructure and building the right system.

It turned out to be a very difficult and costly task – an unsustainable one at that.  We were putting in expensive means and resources to bring down waste.

While doing this we realized something. Landfill was where our collected waste was going to — a place where waste is forgotten and left for eternity.  

It got us thinking. To us, it seemed that we were simply transferring the waste. With it our responsibility for it to the landfill. Nothing else.  Also, it is not that the waste stopped growing.

Building infrastructure and putting systems is only good to manage waste.  To truly solve the waste crisis we need to do two things. One, increase the waste collected by a big margin – we needed to match the rate at which littering was increasing. Two, we also had to reduce the waste altogether — either from getting generated or from reaching the landfill.  

This required more than an infrastructure solution. It required us to look at the problem in a completely different way. We had to get everyone to change their behaviour.

By behavioral change, I mean looking into our habits and perceptions that we have about waste. Waste was not going to get collected by simply asking people to be mindful.

How many of us have tried to make a big behavioral change in our lives? Just think about the last time we got out of bed to go for an early morning run.

I have tried to make several behavioral changes in my life. Each of those tasks have been herculean.

If making a behavioral change in myself was such a difficult task, imagine bringing in total strangers with different outlooks to do the same. It almost seemed impossible. 

But we knew that getting people to think and inculcate a new behaviour was the right way to do it. Because when done right, it was much more effective and sustainable.

Today, I want to share three such stories of behavioral changes that we have worked on

The first problem we needed to solve was to increase the amount of waste we are able to bring down. 

Every year more than 5,000 people flock to just one of these treks.

As a general rule, going on a trek meant following leave no trace – meaning, you do not leave anything other than your footprints behind.  But that is not the general practice. It is ingrained in most of us to throw the waste in hand. Even the most conscious trekker struggled with this.  When you are climbing a steep mountain, focused on your next breath, this is the last thing in your mind.

Inevitably, a lot of waste is generated. To clean the mountains, we needed to stop people from littering and clean the existing litter. How do we do this?

Eco bag.  This is an eco bag.  Every trekker of ours wears this. In fact one easy way to recognise an Indiahikes trekker is to look out for an Eco-bag.  

The instruction to our trekkers was very simple. Tie the eco bags on your waist, pick up litter on the trail/camp. Give the litter to us at the camp when you reach.

With eco bags in place, we started to notice these behavioral changes:

The mere fact that an eco bag was tied to their waist made trekkers stop littering. With a little nudge, they even started to pick up other’s waste. No special instruction was required.  

Until then trekkers always saw the problem as someone else’s to solve.  More conscious people could not see how to solve the problem. The very presence of eco bags empowered them to think of themselves as part of the solution.  

The problem became approachable. With an entire trekking community participating, an inherent shyness to participate in such activities reduced.

The impact went much beyond than this.  As more and more people saw us collecting waste, people hesitated to litter.  The amount of littering reduced in proportion to the amount of people going on the trek. 

More and more people from the local community started becoming conscious. They started to produce lesser litter themselves. 

Many trekkers took this practice and started active clean-up on treks around their homes. 

Over time this became the standard for most trek organizations. Now, other trek organizations have their own eco bags.  

Slowly eco bags became a symbol of how treks run.

From a culture of indifference, we have brought in a culture of proactiveness. In a span of three years we were able to bring down 50,000 kgs of waste from the mountains!

Let me also say this. Eco bag has not solved the problem completely.  We still have people who question why they need to pick up other’s waste. We still have lots of waste to pick up.  

But we are heading in the right direction.

This brings me to the second issue we had in hand. We needed to reduce the waste going to the landfill.  

When I started working at Indiahikes, I noticed that we were not segregating our waste at source. So whatever we collected was going directly to the landfills.

Segregating waste reduces the amount of waste going to landfill by 60-70%. This was incredible. Which meant that of this 50,000 kg we could prevent 30,000 kg and even more of waste going to landfills.  

We knew that segregating waste is an important step. But it is a difficult task. Have you tried segregating waste at home? Most of us don’t.

How can you get trekkers to segregate on a trek? Mind you, we are asking them to segregate in some of the hardest terrain and worst weather after a hard day’s trek.  But we knew it was the right way to trek. The intent to segregate is not a natural habit for any of us. Building that habit is a huge challenge. We tried several ways to do that.  Most of them failed.

For example, at every campsite we prominently kept three clearly labeled sacks. In our trek leader briefings, everyone was asked to segregate the waste at each campsite.  Yet, we noticed that the sacks still came down with mixed waste. 

We realized that even after explaining trekkers did not know which waste went where. A lot of them did not bother.  

This was a problem.  We introduced new posters, illustrations, had more detailed briefings — but none of them were effective.

Then one day, in one of our experiments, we threw a plastic sheet on the ground and asked trekkers to join us segregate.

We noticed an immediate behaviour change. Trekkers were happily segregating waste. Not only were they doing it quickly, they were more accurate. What was happening?  

Trekkers needed nudges. They understand that segregation was important.  But after a hard day’s trek, it was just easy to skip. The nudge helped. 

When they saw everyone participating, it brought about a sense of collective responsibility. Even people who were bystanders, participated.  Peer pressure started to work. 

When it was done together as a community activity, the accuracy improved. People helped each other. Mistakes were less.

During this exercise, we also saw changes in their outlook.

Our trek leaders heard trekkers saying how easy it was to throw waste and how difficult it was to fill a sack of garbage.

A lot of them understood the importance of segregating at source.  The act of segregating waste once it is mixed, made them realize how tedious it was.  

For a lot of them, it was a moment of humility.  They started appreciating people who worked in waste management at the grassroot levels.

In short, the short act of segregating waste, got them to think.  And doing it everyday on the trek helped build this habit on the treks.

Today even as I talk to you, the amount of waste that we send to the landfills have reduced dramatically. The rest is upcycled, recycled or composted.  

Our waste collection was going up, we were diverting almost 60% of waste from landfills. What do we do with the 40% waste?

The problem with the 40% is that they are mainly non-recyclable waste – chocolate wrappers, biscuit wrappers, shampoo sachets – these are the waste that get thrown out very easily.  Once I stopped and asked a small kid why he was throwing down a chips packet, he told me, what else to do with it?

So, that is what we worked on – what can we do with these waste?  In villages, much of the generated waste is non-recyclable waste. To stop them from littering or burning the waste, we needed to show them the value the waste holds.  We realized that upcycling was a way to do that. We thought that if they are able to sell the products out of this waste, they would see it differently.

We started with the women.  If we could change their minds, then the men and children would follow.

To do this, first, we had to identify the products to upcycle. There were two constraints:  

After lot of thought, we identified cushions, bottle bricks and coasters for our products. All of these products were easy to make, no skill required and could be used anywhere.

Initially, it was difficult to get the women to segregate the plastic wrappers or get them to clean it. But when they saw revenue out of the sales, they started to understand its value.  

Women who used to burn or throw the waste, started collecting them.  They would keep it safe until our product making workshops. We saw them even picking up waste from the streets. Cleaning them became easy. The value of waste changed.  Waste became opportunities.

Soon our efforts reached over 12 villages and over 100 women. We made hundreds of these cushions to trekkers. Trekkers were buying them happily. The village women wanted to up their production!

On the other hand the bottle bricks were another big hit. We started using the bottle bricks to make benches, shelves, and a lot of utility products for the use of villages themselves.

All of this resulted in lesser waste going to landfills. I saw the same kid making bottle bricks with the wrapper instead of throwing it down.  The streets of these villages were getting visibly cleaner.

A recent testament to our efforts was when the Block Development Officer of a remote village Bijenbari near Darjeeling got the entire villagers to make more than 4,000 bottle bricks to build a wall around his facility. He promised to build more infrastructure with the bottle bricks in the future. This is a wonderful example of a community was taking charge of their waste.  

The waste we upcycle is otherwise non-recyclable.  Three years ago, I have heard communities tell me that they needed dustbins, a person to collect their waste and someone to take down the waste.  Now, the very same people see other ways of handling waste — that cost almost nothing but can handle almost everything.

Earlier, when I researched for long term solutions — incinerators, pyrolysis machines and recycling plants seemed to be the solution.  These long term solutions seemed impossible to implement in these remote areas. It seemed like a dead end.

Here is the full script of the TedX Talk by our Green Trails Head, Lakshmi Selvakumaran. Here, she talks about waste crisis as a behavioural problem.

Why Waste Crisis Is A Behavioral Problem - A TedX Talk By Our Green Trails Head

Picture this: a closed room filled with adult women in Rimbick, a small village near the end of the Sandakphu trail. Two speakers holding a menstrual cup in their hands are explaining to their listeners how to insert it in their cervix area. Amid this not-so-favored arena, there is a young female of 16, quietly sitting and carefully noting every word spoken. Now hold on to this thought.

Supriya is a young girl who bridged the gap between Green Trails fellows and the young adults in Rimbick, spreading awareness about sustainable menstruation.

Supriya Sayazue Pradhan is our protagonist. A student of 11th standard at Rimbick High School and the only girl coming from the Science Background.

The first time we saw her – she was onstage, singing a beautiful song at Kanyashree, an event for young women held at Bijanbari-Pulbazar Block Development Office. That day she left a mark as an artist.

After our workshop on sustainable menstruation, she left a deeper mark on us as an individual. This is why:

Her first time experience of using the menstrual cup will remain special for us.

We were so tightly bound to our seats as she gave us a call and shared her experience. Good Heavens, we were more nervous than she was! Later in the evening, when we pestered her again to know if she was comfortable. Her positive response made us jump around like teenagers ourselves.

This was overwhelming. It meant we were ready to promote the use of menstrual cups to adolescents with the same vigor as we approached adult women.

Supriya became our model young user of menstrual cup. Our workshop in front of the adolescent hub at Rimbick High School had more impactful because the girls had an example among themselves to advocate for the ease and comfort of menstrual cup. “Even I was scared for the first time, but now that I have used it I feel everyone here should try it as well”, Supriya’s words gave confidence to all.

Not only did this young girl take chance with a stroppy idea but she managed to influence her friends to switch from sanitary pads to menstrual cups. Her little sister who is 14 is also going to be an addition in this “cup-verted” league. Supriya is not just someone to embrace change – she also helps in giving it roots in a new ground.

For this and many more young women to come, she is our local hero!

Watch this video to know more about Supriya’s story on menstrual cups.

1. If you would like to to support Green Trails in its efforts to keep the mountains clean and bring in sustainability, click here.

2. If you would like to help Green Trails by working in remote Himalayan villages, then apply for the  Green Trails Fellowship here.

3. If you would like to read another story of a Green Trails local hero, then click here. 

4. If you ended up here by chance and were actually looking for treks to do: Then head over to our upcoming treks page. You’ll find all our Himalayan treks there.

5. If you want to see the 13 best treks of India: Then get our free guide here.

Our GT fellows were apprehensive about approaching young adults to switch to menstrual cups. Then came Supriya. Learn how a teenager became a Local Hero.

The Young Girl Who Embraced Change

All it takes is a small, simple idea to make a big difference. Sounds clichéd, doesn’t it? I would have thought so. However, after meeting Nima Rai, I can say with conviction that clichés exist for a reason.

Let me introduce you to Nima – football crazy, Nepali song aficionado and a Green Trails Team chauffeur on bad weather days.

Nima is a football crazy, Nepali song aficionado and a Green Trails Team chauffeur on bad weather days. He keeps a garbage bag in his car to pick up any trash that he sees on the road.

We met Nima for the first time at Rimbick, a small, vibrant market area just a few kilometers away from Sepi village, the endpoint of the Sandakphu trek. Rimbick has its own charm – a pocket of human humdrum in the middle of a silent bamboo forest.

Quite like his village, Nima exudes enthusiasm. Every time we came back to our homestay after our daily quota of work, Nima would ask us numerous questions about what we were up to. We understood that he was very interested in the kind of work Green Trails does. In his broken Hindi and heavy voice he often told us that “Maila toh Dami nahi hai.” (Waste is not nice at all).

So, on one of those foul weather days when we sat in Nima’s Alto car which is bedecked with football team scarves, we noticed a small blue bag hanging beside the FC Barcelona towels. When we asked about it, raising our voice over the lovely Nepali music he was playing as he drove us around, he sprang up saying, “Yeh mera kachra bag cho.” (This is my trash bag).

Nima observed that most of the plastic wrappers lingering around the uneven roads of Rimbick are the “gifts” of the passengers travelling in vehicles.

Nima with his Alto car. Apart from being decked out with Barcelona Football Club flags, his car serves two purposes: to transport people around and to collect garbage strewn along the roadside. Nima’s efforts have now become an inspiration for other cab driver on the Sandakphu trail to take up the issue of litter.

That is when he came up with his idea — A waste bag inside the car. He almost ordered us to march ahead and ask every driver to do the same. Honestly, we were awestruck by the minimalism of his action. We realized the value of what he had done with just one small simple idea.

So we followed his idea to combat the irresponsible littering on the roads of Rimbick. Nima had a bag that could take about 20 chips packet and 50 chocolate wrappers. Peak seasons would mean he would go to and fro between Sepi and Darjeeling. In a week, that would be about 500 wrappers he picked up from the roadside. So in about four months that would be close to 8000 wrappers. The wrappers were usually a combination of chips/Waiwai and chocolate wrappers mostly. The impact was huge.

We urged all the other drivers at Rimbick to put up a waste bag inside their cars. Since there is a road route to Sandakphu, a lot of Land Rovers ferry tourists up and down the route.

We have now put up posters and a waste bag at every vehicle around the Sandakphu trail. The habit of throwing waste outside the window without much thought has reduced in the last few months. This is not just our observation. We hear it from other travellers as well.

An arguably small idea started a chain of events. Can we even begin to imagine what would happen if every vehicle has a trash bag inside it?

Do we all have the time to come out of our daily lives and just mull over waste management solutions like Nima?

The idea may not bring the waste down to zero. But it is a start. A small, simple and effective start.

3. If you would like to read another story of a Green Trails local hero like Nima, then click here. 

Nima Rai from the town of Rimbik in Darjeeling comes up with a radically simple idea that helped cut down trash on Sandakphu trail.

How Our Local Hero Nima&#039;s Simple Idea Reduced Reckless Littering On The Sandakphu Trail

How Our Local Hero Nima's Simple Idea Reduced Reckless Littering On The Sandakphu Trail

“Kya aapko pata hai ek nari apne jeewan mei 10,000 sanitary pads jalati hai nahi toh garhti hai?”

(Do you know that a woman either burns or dumps 10,000 sanitary pads in her entire menstrual time?)

This was Shweta and my daily mantra during our time on the slopes of Sandakphu. We took into our hands the difficult problem of sustainable menstruation on this slope for our Green Trails fellowship.

It is a type of reusable feminine hygiene product. Menstrual cups are made of silicone which makes it 100% skin friendly. It’s a small, flexible funnel-shaped cup that you insert into your vagina to collect period fluid.

The hurdle we faced was to put across the idea of inserting a menstrual cup into one’s body. These women lived in remote parts of Darjeeling which meant that they had little exposure to the kind of information a person from a big metropolitan city may have. The task was bit daunting but we were ready to give it a fair shot. 

One thing we had going for us was the economic benefits of the menstrual cup.  A woman spends around INR 1000 per year on sanitary pads. One menstrual cup costs anywhere between INR 200 to INR 1500 – definitely a preferable option for a customer. 12-years, one single cup – is there anything that could compete this durability?

How we began our journey of promoting sustainable menstruation

Our first challenge was to influence at least one local inhabitant who would be ready to switch from sanitary pads to menstrual cup. When we met Anjala Rai for the first time, we knew that she was the most suitable person to take this step.

Anjala, a social working in Sandakphu region conducting a workshop. She helped bridge the gap between the Green Trails team and the locals.

Anjala Rai is a young female entrepreneur and a social worker native to the land of Sepi, the last door of the Sandakphu trek. On her own, she has been working on women development. She was not the least hesitant to first try out the menstrual cup herself. Given the nature of work she is involved in, she subsequently introduced the idea of menstrual cups and sustainable menstrual hygiene to the local women. 

We found our first and most important ally in her – she accompanied us to two workshops. As she belonged to the area, she could explain in Nepali the benefits of menstrual cups, how disposal of sanitary pads affects nature and put forward her own experience with the cup.  This helped women warm up to the idea in the first place and from then on, Shweta and I carried on to conduct 40 more workshops.

The scale and magnitude of the workshop grew faster than we expected and the locals began to know us by the name “Cup Girls”.

We armed ourselves with pictorial placards that explained the anatomy of the female body, the menstrual cycle, why the sanitary pads are harmful and why menstrual cup is a more desirable alternative. We also talked about how to use a menstrual cup.

Session on sustainable menstruation and waste management with girls of classes 11 and 12 at Bansbotey.

Being menstrual cup users ourselves, it was easy to express the hazards, not just environmental but also of health that comes with the plastic-coated sanitary pads. As Shweta says, “Plastic prakriti se janme koi bhi chiz ke liye anukul nahi hai”. (Plastic is not compatible with anything natural).

We started our sessions with our personal experiences of the sanitary pad and our own problems with them. This encouraged the women – young and middle-aged like – to talk about the problems they face with the pads.

This was the murmur of the students from one of the first schools that we went to:

“Ahem..rashes!! Errr…Itchy!!  Sweating!! Foul smell…!! Hee hee hee”

While the students had juvenile outbursts over their very adolescent awkwardness of their changing body, the women from various Self Help Groups (SHGs) and shops on the other hand, spoke of their 7-day battle.

Then, we brought in the biggest issue with sanitary pads: disposal. 

They burn them. The following statement makes it quite evident why:

“Jalane ka man toh nahi karta.. lekin kya karein ghar mein toh jama ke nahi rakh sakte.” (We do not burn pads willfully, but we cannot store the used pads).

Well, that is not very irrational right? 

This was when we introduced the menstrual cup as a perfect solution to all their problems. Trekking, dancing, travelling, swimming, cycling, household chores or merely getting wet in the rain are all possible just like any other “regular” day when you have menstrual cup to the rescue. The best part is- their life cycle unlike a sanitary pad, is for 12 years.

A Green Trails fellow at an menstrual cup awareness workshop

As Shweta and I ventured deeper into the menstrual life of the women, the alien concept of menstrual cups became more accessible to them. We always carried a menstrual cup with us to the workshop – so the women could touch the cup themselves, feel the texture of the silicone themselves. Shweta and I, seeing the sensitive nature of the topic, often took it upon ourselves to roleplay – making the information light to receive.

For example, in schools, when we were doing a workshop with students, we would make a skit out of how to use the cup.

“Momita, you told me to insert the cup but it looks too big!”

“Shweta, you have to fold the cup!” I would say and then proceed to show the students different ways of folding the cup.

“Well, how do I take it out? Do you think the cup will get lost inside my body?”

We used this kind of roleplay format to give them information while addressing very real fears they would have about using the cup. 

We then became more elaborate with the workshops to answer questions on the anatomy and whether or not you need to take the cup out when you pee. We shared our personal experiences and encouraged them to share theirs. 

We gave them our numbers – telling them if they need us to talk through the first time they are inserting the menstrual cup, we will be there (Full disclosure: we have gotten calls from women inserting the menstrual cup for the first time – we encouraged them, joked with them and helped them ease into the process).

Women with their menstrual cup purchase after a workshop

The women started requesting us to make the menstrual cups available to them, since ordering online was not a feasible option. We contacted the companies that manufacture and promote menstrual cups. We got an incredible response. So much so that bulk orders were placed at a subsidized price. The incredible support from Sannap and Hygiene & You helped us take the awareness on menstrual cups a step forward and make it available for these women. We even had Diva, cups from Canada  donated by Green The Red  for the cause.

In places such as Jaubhari, active women like Malathi di, grabbed a menstrual cup right after the workshop. 16-year old girl Supriya, from Rimbick High School, became the young icon who inspired her young friends and sister after using the cup herself. “Music” laughed Supriya “helped me calmed myself when I first inserted the cup”.

The outcome of talking about sustainable menstruation?

Today, we can proudly announce that there are 62 women who are happy users of menstrual cup along the Sandakphu trail. 

Statistically speaking, there will be 62,000 pads less burnt/disposed/buried. In a span of a little over 2 months, if 62 women can switch to menstrual cups, there can be no brighter ray of hope. Change begins at one place and runs its own marathon. 

It doesn’t take long for fire to begin from one small tree to cover the forest.  This story of sustainable menstruation was one such case.

1. If you’d like to read more stories about sustainability and our battles against waste, head over to this page.

2. If you have further ideas where we can bring in sustainability in the trekking world, drop in a comment. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

3. If you would like to see the 13 Best Himalayan Treks in India, get your PDF here.

4. If you landed up here by chance and were actually looking for treks to do, head over to our upcoming treks page.

Our Green Trails team has been active on the Sandakphu slope spreading awareness about sustainable menstruation. And slowly but surely, they are succeeding.

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