A plastic container floating in the Ramganga River might seem like an ordinary piece of litter.

But in January 2020, tourists at Corbett Tiger Reserve watched a tigress and two cubs chewing one.

The photographs, taken in the Dhikala range, were handed to the reserve authorities on 30 January. Corbett officials ordered an inquiry into how the plastic container reached the reserve. At the time, the reserve was already a plastic-free zone, and officials said it could have entered through the river from settlements upstream.

Six years later, India is putting the problem on a very different footing.

On 25 September 2026, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), launched the sixth cycle of the Management Effectiveness Evaluation of Tiger Reserves (MEE-TR).

MEETR 2026: 14 evaluation teams have been constituted to assess 58 tiger reserves across India. Key highlights include a new criterion on solid waste management and the inclusion of active management of tigers in tiger reserves, strengthening the evaluation framework. https://t.co/MDjYysYIEA — National Tiger Conservation Authority (@ntca_india) September 25, 2026

MEETR 2026: 14 evaluation teams have been constituted to assess 58 tiger reserves across India. Key highlights include a new criterion on solid waste management and the inclusion of active management of tigers in tiger reserves, strengthening the evaluation framework. https://t.co/MDjYysYIEA

For the first time, solid waste management has been made a separate evaluation criterion.

The assessment will cover all 58 tiger reserves in India and will examine waste generated at forest posts, through tourism and at wildlife rescue centres, including biomedical waste. Independent multidisciplinary teams will assess how reserves are being managed, using a framework that looks at everything from planning and resources to actual conservation outcomes.

It is not a new tiger census. No scores have been released yet, and the exercise does........

© The Better India