'Someone Else Will Clean It': The Mindset Foreign Tourists Say Is Fueling India's Litter Problem

A plastic bottle tossed from a moving car. Food wrappers scattered across a beach after sunset. Piles of garbage lining the banks of a river worshipped as a goddess. For many Indians, these scenes have become so common that they barely register anymore. Yet for foreign tourists visiting the country, they are often impossible to ignore.

Over the past few years, several international travellers and influencers have shared videos expressing shock at the amount of litter in public spaces across India. From beaches and hill stations to riversides and city streets, many have questioned why a country so rich in culture, spirituality and natural beauty continues to struggle with basic civic cleanliness.

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What makes these observations uncomfortable is that they often come from people who genuinely love India and keep returning despite its flaws.

Among them is Radha, an Austrian citizen who first visited India during the Maha Kumbh and later decided to leave her life in Austria behind and settle here.

“I was in India for around one year. I first came to India last year with my Hatha Yoga group and our yoga teacher for the Maha Kumbh. The moment I arrived, something deeply resonated with me. Everything felt strangely familiar, even hearing Hindi. Those two weeks were very intense and transformative for me.”

Radha

Living in Rishikesh brought her close to the Ganga and the deep spirituality that surrounds it. But she was struck by a contradiction she witnessed every day. “People come there to pray and perform rituals, yet many also leave trash in the river and its surroundings. For me, it raised a deeper question about sacredness and consciousness, because nature itself, the earth and the rivers that give us life, is inseparable from what we call holy.”

For Radha, the issue is not merely about cleanliness. It is about the gap between what people say they revere and how they actually behave.

“In Austria, rivers and nature are generally very clean and protected. There is a collective consciousness that nature should not be polluted. In India, I experienced almost the opposite around the Ganga: the river is deeply loved, worshipped and seen as alive, yet materially neglected in many places.”

The problem of normalisation

British travel creator The Manc Abroad believes the issue goes deeper than infrastructure or a lack of awareness campaigns.

“It is completely normalised in your country. Not only in Mumbai, it happened in most cities I visited. Delhi especially, I saw a man passing some rubbish trash to his child and asking him to throw it out of the window.”

For him, the incident symbolised how habits are passed from one generation to the next. “Teaching a child something like that is part of the problem. It will carry on for generations. And it will continue till generations unless there is a huge change.”

The Manc Abroad

His words may sound harsh, but they point to an uncomfortable reality. Children learn civic behaviour by observing adults. If littering becomes routine at home, in vehicles, or during family outings, it gradually becomes socially acceptable.

The "someone else will clean it" mindset

Perhaps the biggest challenge is not a shortage of dustbins or municipal workers. It is a mindset. Many Indians continue to view public spaces as someone else's responsibility. The logic is simple: taxes are paid, sanitation workers are employed, therefore cleaning is their job.

But this attitude ignores a basic principle of civic life. Public spaces belong to everyone, which means maintaining them is everyone's responsibility too.

An Indian travel vlogger, who requested anonymity, believes this mentality is at the heart of the problem. “The problem is not the lack of dustbins. I've travelled across India and seen people throw garbage within sight of a dustbin. Many of us treat public spaces differently from our homes. We would never throw trash in our living room, but we don't think twice before littering a beach or roadside.”

The observation is difficult to argue with. Most Indians take pride in keeping their homes clean. The disconnect appears when the boundary of responsibility ends at the front door.

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More than just an image problem

Littering is often dismissed as a cosmetic issue, but its impact goes much further. Plastic waste clogs drains and contributes to flooding during monsoons. Garbage pollutes rivers and lakes. Wildlife consumes plastic and other harmful materials. Tourist destinations lose their charm and struggle to maintain global appeal.

At the same time, it would be unfair to suggest that India alone faces this challenge. As Radha points out, every society has its own blind spots.

“I don’t think this is something unique to Indians, or that foreigners are here to ‘teach’ people. Every culture has its own blind spots and forms of disconnection. But when something becomes normalised over generations, people can stop truly seeing it.”

That may be the most important insight of all. The question is no longer why tourists are pointing out the problem. The real question is why so many of us still believe that keeping India clean is someone else's job.

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