Srinagar, March 2 -- Garbage has quietly become one of the most visible signs of governance failure in Kashmir. Plastic bags flutter along highways, household waste piles up on village roads, and many streams that once carried clear water now resemble slow-moving drains. What was once considered a temporary civic inconvenience is gradually turning into a structural environmental problem.

Yet the irony is that the world has already solved much of this problem.

Many developed countries faced waste crises far worse than what Kashmir experiences today. Their cities were once buried under garbage, rivers were polluted, and landfills were overflowing. But through planning, discipline, and innovative systems, they transformed waste management ...